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历史的追寻

The Pursuit of History

历史的追寻

The Pursuit of History

现代史研究的目标、方法和新方向

Aims, methods and new directions in the study of modern history

第五版

FIFTH EDITION

约翰·托什

John Tosh

本书最初由培生教育有限公司于1984年出版。

First published 1984 by Pearson Education Limited

第二版 1991年

Second edition 1991

第三版 1992年

Third edition 1992

第四版 1996

Fourth edition 1996

第五版于2010年在英国出版

Fifth edition published in Great Britain 2010

由 Routledge 出版社于 2013 年出版。

Published 2013 by Routledge

英国牛津郡阿宾顿米尔顿公园公园广场2号,邮编OX14 4RN

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

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Routledge是Taylor & Francis集团旗下的一个出版品牌,而Taylor & Francis集团是Informa集团旗下的一个业务部门。

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

版权所有 © 1984, 2010, Taylor & Francis。

Copyright © 1984, 2010, Taylor & Francis.

约翰·托什已根据 1988 年版权、设计和专利法主张其作为该作品作者的身份。

The right of John Tosh to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

版权所有。未经出版商书面许可,不得以任何形式或通过任何电子、机械或其他方式(包括影印和录音)转载、复制或使用本书的任何部分,也不得将其存储于任何信息存储或检索系统中。

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

通知

Notices

该领域的知识和最佳实践在不断变化。随着新的研究和经验不断拓展我们的认知,研究方法、专业实践或医疗手段可能需要做出相应的改变。

Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.

从业人员和研究人员在评估和使用本文所述的任何信息、方法、化合物或实验时,必须始终依赖自身的经验和知识。在使用此类信息或方法时,他们应注意自身和他人的安全,包括他们负有专业责任的各方的安全。

Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.

在法律允许的最大范围内,出版商、作者、贡献者或编辑均不承担因产品责任、疏忽或其他原因,或因使用或操作本文材料中包含的任何方法、产品、说明或想法而对人身或财产造成的任何伤害和/或损害的任何责任。

To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.

ISBN 13:978–0–582–89412–9(pbk)

ISBN 13: 978–0–582–89412–9 (pbk)

英国图书馆出版物编目数据

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

本书的CIP目录记录可从大英图书馆获取。

A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library

美国国会图书馆出版物数据编目

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

托什,约翰。

Tosh, John.

历史的追求:现代史研究的目标、方法和新方向 / 约翰·托什著。——第5版

The pursuit of history : aims, methods, and new directions in the study of modern history / John Tosh. – 5th ed.

    厘米

    p. cm.

包含索引。

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-582-89412-9(平装本)

ISBN 978-0-582-89412-9 (pbk.)

1. 史学。2. 英国史学。I. 标题。

1. Historiography. 2. Great Britain–Historiography. I. Title.

D13.T62 2010

D13.T62 2010

907.2′041–dc22

907.2′041–dc22

2009043558

2009043558

以 3 为单位,10pt Sabon

Set by 3 in 10pt Sabon

内容

Contents

第五版序言

Preface to the Fifth Edition

出版商致谢

Publisher’s Acknowledgements

  1.    历史意识

  1    Historical awareness

  2    历史的用途

  2    The uses of history

  3    绘制领域图

  3    Mapping the field

  4    原材料

  4    The raw materials

  5.    利用资源

  5    Using the sources

  6.    写作与诠释

  6    Writing and interpretation

  7    历史知识的局限性

  7    The limits of historical knowledge

  8    历史与社会理论

  8    History and social theory

  9    文化证据与文化转向

  9    Cultural evidence and the cultural turn

10    性别史与后殖民史

10    Gender history and postcolonial history

11    记忆与口语

11    Memory and the spoken word

结论

Conclusion

指数

Index

献给尼克和威尔

For Nick and Will

第五版序言

Preface to the Fifth Edition

T在日常用语中, “历史”一词通常包含两层含义。它既指过去实际发生的事情,也指历史学家对这段历史的叙述和呈现。本书旨在介绍历史的第二种含义。它面向所有对历史学科感兴趣,并希望了解历史研究如何进行以及其目的何在的读者。更具体地说,本书的目标读者是历史专业的学生,​​因为这些问题对他们而言尤为重要。

The word history carries two meanings in common parlance. It refers both to what actually happened in the past and to the representation of that past in the work of historians. This book is an introduction to history in the second sense. It is intended for anyone who is sufficiently interested in the subject to wonder how historical enquiry is conducted and what purpose it fulfils. More specifically, the book is addressed to students taking a degree course in history, for whom these questions have particular relevance.

传统上,历史学本科生并未接受过关于其所选学科本质的正式指导;历史学在我国文学文化中悠久的地位以及其非技术性的呈现方式,似乎表明常识加上扎实的通识教育就能为学生提供所需的基本方向。这种方法很大程度上依赖于运气。学生理应认真思考他们即将投入三年或更长时间学习的学科的功能。除非对当代历史学术的内容和范围有清晰的理解,否则课程选择将充满不确定性。最重要的是,学生需要意识到史料的性质和历史学家的工作方法对历史知识的限制,以便尽早培养批判性思维,以应对他们必须掌握的大量二手资料。当然,完全有可能在不系统思考这些问题的情况下完成历史学学位课程,而且一代又一代的学生也确实如此。但如今大多数大学都认识到,历史学研究的价值因此而降低,他们因此,需要开设历史学方法和范围的入门课程。我希望本书能够满足选修此类课程的学生的需求。

Traditionally history undergraduates were offered no formal instruction in the nature of their chosen discipline; its time-honoured place in our literary culture and its non-technical presentation suggested that common sense combined with a sound general education would provide the student with what little orientation he or she required. This approach leaves a great deal to chance. It is surely desirable that students consider the functions served by a subject to which they are about to devote three years of study or more. Curriculum choice will be a hit-and-miss affair unless based on a clear grasp of the content and scope of present-day historical scholarship. Above all, students need to be aware of the limits placed on historical knowledge by the character of the sources and the working methods of historians, so that at an early stage they can develop a critical approach to the formidable array of secondary authorities that they are required to master. It is certainly possible to complete a degree course in history without giving systematic thought to any of these issues, and generations of students have done so. But most universities now recognize that the value of historical study is thereby diminished, and they therefore provide introductory courses on the methods and scope of history. I hope that this book will meet the needs of students taking such a course.

尽管我自身的研究领域主要集中在非洲历史和现代英国的性别研究,但我并非意在撰写一份“新历史”宣言。相反,我试图展现当代历史研究实践的多样性,并将近期的创新置于主流传统学术研究的语境中。主流传统学术研究仍然占据着大量一流历史著作的主导地位,并在学术课程中占据主导地位。如今,历史研究的范围如此之广,以至于很难确定本书的具体涵盖范围;但如果没有一些或多或少人为设定的界限,这样篇幅的入门著作就会失去连贯性。因此,我没有涉及科学史或环境史,对身体史和消费史也只是略有提及。总的来说,我选择的主题仅限于当今学生广泛研究的那些领域。

Although my own research experience has been in the fields of African history and gender in modern Britain, it has not been my intention to write a manifesto for ‘the new history’. I have tried instead to convey the diversity of current historical practice, and to situate recent innovations in the context of mainstream traditional scholarship, which continues to account for a great deal of first-rate historical work and to dominate academic syllabuses. The scope of historical studies is today so wide that it has not been easy to determine the precise range of this book; but without some more or less arbitrary boundaries an introductory work of this length would lose all coherence. I therefore say nothing about the history of science or environmental history, and there are only passing references to the history of the body and the history of consumption. In general I have confined my choice to those themes that are widely studied by students today.

然而,即便在这些限制范围内,我的研究领域也处处暗藏玄机。任何认为历史学入门读物会体现专家共识的人都应该立即醒悟。历史学界的一大特点就是围绕历史研究的目标和局限性展开的激烈争论。本书不可避免地反映了我个人的观点,因此有必要在开篇就阐明这些观点。其要点包括:历史是一门具有实际社会意义的学科;历史学要发挥其应有的作用,就必须对其他学科抱持开放和辨别的态度;以及学院派历史学的研究方法并非旨在提供绝对意义上的“真理”,而是旨在逐步增进我们对过去的认识。同时,我也试图将这些观点——当然,这些观点并非原创——置于近期历史学家之间的辩论背景下进行探讨,并认真对待那些与我意见相左的观点。

Even within these limits, however, my territory is something of a minefield. Anyone who imagines that an introduction to the study of history will express a consensus of expert opinion needs to be promptly disabused. One of the distinguishing features of the profession is its heated arguments concerning the objectives and limitations of historical study. This book inevitably reflects my own views, and it is appropriate to declare them at the outset. The salient points are: that history is a subject of practical social relevance; that the proper performance of its function depends on a receptive and discriminating attitude to other disciplines; and that the methods of academic history hold out the promise not of ‘truth’ in an absolute sense, but of incremental growth in our knowledge of the past. At the same time, I have tried to place these claims – none of which is of course original – in the context of recent debate among historians, and to give a fair hearing to views with which I disagree.

本书探讨的是一些关于历史和历史学家的普遍性命题,而非提供进入任何特定领域或专业的入门途径。但我预计大多数读者对英国历史的了解会比其他任何国家的历史更为深入,因此我的例证主要来自英国历史领域,并辅以一些来自非洲、欧洲和美国的例子。本书旨在通读全书,但我……文中包含一定量的交叉引用,以帮助希望深入研究特定主题的读者。

This book explores a number of general propositions about history and historians, rather than providing a point of entry into any one field or specialism. But since I anticipate that most of my readers will be more familiar with British history than any other, I have relied for my illustrative material mostly on that field, with some additional examples from Africa, Europe and the United States. The book is meant to be read as a whole, but I have included a certain amount of cross-referencing in the text to assist the reader who wishes to pursue specific themes.

本书旨在引导读者从基本原理出发,逐步深入到关于历史研究方向的最新辩论。第一章探讨了历史思维的意义。第二章回顾了关于历史除了满足人类对过去的好奇心之外是否还有其他用途的争论。第三试图对众多以“历史”为名的研究类型进行分类。接下来的两章(第四章和第五)列举并分析了书面原始资料。第六章考察了历史学家用来传达研究成果的不同写作方式。第七章回顾了围绕历史真理主张而展开的激烈辩论,并特别关注后现代主义。本书的其余部分描述了若干具体的历史研究方法,所有这些方法都或多或少地受到理论的影响。第八章探讨了马克思主义和其他社会理论;第九章评估了文化资源的贡献以及被称为“文化转向”的更广泛的重新定位;第十章讨论了性别史和后殖民史。最后,第 11 章探讨了历史与记忆之间的关系,包括口述历史。

The book is intended to take the reader from first principles through to some of the latest debates about the direction historical study is taking. Chapter 1 considers what it means to think historically. Chapter 2 reviews the debate about whether history has any use beyond human curiosity about the past. Chapter 3 seeks to categorize the many and varied kinds of study that sail under the banner of ‘history’. Then follow two chapters (4 and 5) that itemize and analyse written primary sources. Chapter 6 examines the different kinds of writing through which historians communicate their findings. Chapter 7 reviews the intense debates that have arisen about the truth claims of history, paying special attention to Postmodernism. The remainder of the book describes a number of specific approaches to history, all informed to a greater or lesser degree by theory. Chapter 8 considers Marxism and other kinds of social theory; Chapter 9 evaluates the contribution of cultural sources and the broader reorientation known as the ‘cultural turn’. Chapter 10 deals with gender history and postcolonial history. Finally, Chapter 11 considers the relationship between history and memory, including oral history.

熟悉前几版的读者肯定想知道这一版有何不同。新版改动颇多。我对历史主要主题的概述进行了重新组织,并提前至本书第三章。新增了全球史(第三章)和比较史(第六章)章节。第九章更深入地探讨了文化史日益扩展的范畴。前一版中后殖民主义只是略有提及,而新版则用半章篇幅进行阐述(第十章)。女性史和性别史的论述也集中到了一起(同样在第十章)。我对口述史的论述进行了重新调整,使其与近期关于记忆的研究成果更加紧密地联系起来(第十一章)。尽管如此,这些新增内容并未使本书篇幅增加,因为我的目标仍然是提供对这门学科的简洁入门。创新的另一面是,过去的主题在今天可能不再那么重要。因此,我做出了一些删减。关于量化历史的章节已被删除,但该主题在第五章和第八中仍有简要提及。马克思主义历史的篇幅有所缩减,但它仍然是一个重要的主题(第八章)。口述传统(与口头传统不同)历史部分也同样进行了删减(第11章)。此外,我还对正文和参考文献进行了多处更新。

Anyone familiar with previous editions will want to know what is different about this one. There are substantial changes. My survey of the main themes of history has been reorganized and placed earlier in the book (Chapter 3). There are sections on global history (Chapter 3) and comparative history (Chapter 6). The ever-widening scope of cultural history is more fully explored in Chapter 9. In the previous edition postcolonialism was mentioned in passing, but now receives half a chapter (Chapter 10). The treatment of women’s and gender history has been brought together in one place (also Chapter 10). I have recast my coverage of oral history, linking it more closely with the recent scholarship on memory (Chapter 11). At the same time, these additions have not resulted in a longer text, since my goal remains to provide a succinct introduction to the discipline. The flip side of innovation is that yesterday’s themes may count for less today. I have therefore made excisions. The chapter on quantitative history has been dropped, but the topic briefly appears in Chapters 5 and 8. Marxist history has been cut down to size, though it remains an important theme (Chapter 8). Oral tradition (as distinct from oral history) has likewise been trimmed (Chapter 11). Elsewhere I have updated the text and the reference material at numerous points.

本书的研究和写作范围远远超出任何个人的经验,因此比大多数书籍更依赖于其他学者的帮助。早期版本记录了我所受到的学术恩惠。最新版受益于彼得·爱德华兹、凯莉·汉密尔顿、保拉·汉密尔顿、凯伦·哈维、克里斯蒂娜·罗伯特、约翰·西德和卡罗琳·怀特的建议。

In ranging so far beyond any one person’s experience of research and writing, this book is more dependent than most on the help of other scholars. Earlier editions record my intellectual debts. This latest edition has benefited from the advice of Peter Edwards, Carrie Hamilton, Paula Hamilton, Karen Harvey, Krisztina Robert, John Seed and Caroline White.

我特别感谢 Seán Lang:他在第四版中设计了学生辅助材料,我在这里也采用了同样的风格,并添加了一些内容。

I am particularly grateful to Seán Lang: he devised the student aids in the fourth edition, and I have incorporated them here in the same house style, with some additions.

约翰·托什

John Tosh

2009年5月

May 2009

出版商致谢

Publisher’s Acknowledgements

出版社谨此感谢以下人士慷慨授权使用其照片:

The publisher would like to thank the following for their kind permission to reproduce their photographs:

第4页 Bridgeman Art Library Ltd:美国华盛顿国会大厦收藏 / Bridgeman Art Library;第14页 Getty Images:法新社;第18页 Getty Images:Hulton Archive;第40页 TopFoto:Image Works;第62页 Getty Images:时代生活图片;第64页 Mary Evans Picture Library;第80页 Bridgeman Art Library Ltd:私人收藏 / Bridgeman Art Library;第90页 Getty Images:时代生活图片;第94页 akg-images Ltd;第111页 Mary Evans Picture Library;第123页 Bridgeman Art Library Ltd:私人收藏 / Bridgeman Art Library;第128页 Photographers Direct;第137页 Paul Shawcross;第139页 Corbis:Hulton Archive;第154页 TopFoto:Topham Picturepoint;第169页 akg-images Ltd;第176页 Corbis:James Leynse;第225页 Mary Evans Picture Library;第237页 Alamy Images:ICP;第250页 Bridgeman Art Library Ltd:伦敦市政厅图书馆/Bridgeman Art Library;第252页 Getty Images:Hulton Archive;第255页 Getty Images:Hulton Archive;第275页 Corbis:Bettmann;第284页 TopFoto:Topham Picturepoint;第288页 Bridgeman Art Library Ltd:法国巴黎卢浮宫/Giraudon/Bridgeman Art Library;第295页 Getty Images:Popperfoto;第310页 Getty Images:AFP;第311页 Getty Images:Hulton Archive;第318页 TopFoto:J White;第320页 TopFoto:Image Works

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所有其他图片版权归培生教育所有

All other images © Pearson Education

图片研究:艾莉森·普赖尔。

Picture Research by Alison Prior.

我们已尽一切努力寻找版权所有者,如有任何无意遗漏,敬请谅解。我们乐意在本出版物的任何后续版本中添加相应的致谢信息。

Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders and we apologise in advance for any unintentional omissions. We would be pleased to insert the appropriate acknowledgement in any subsequent edition of this publication.

第一章

Chapter One

历史意识

Historical awareness

本章探讨了个人或集体记忆与一种更为严谨的历史观之间的区别。这种历史观体现了一种历史意识。所有群体都对过去有所感知,但他们往往利用这种感知来强化自身的信仰和身份认同。如同个人记忆一样,集体记忆或社会记忆也可能存在缺陷,受到传统观念、怀旧情绪或对历史进步的信念等因素的影响而产生扭曲。现代专业历史学家以十九世纪的历史主义为指导,该理论认为应该按照历史本身的视角来研究过去,“如实呈现过去”。然而,这种更为客观的历史观可能会使历史学家与那些认为自身珍视的历史版本正受到威胁的人们产生冲突。

This chapter looks at the difference between memory, whether individual or collective, and the more disciplined approach towards the past that characterizes an awareness of history. All groups have a sense of the past, but they tend to use it to reinforce their own beliefs and sense of identity. Like human memory, collective or social memory can be faulty, distorted by factors such as a sense of tradition or nostalgia, or else a belief in progress through time. Modern professional historians take their cue from nineteenth-century historicism, which taught that the past should be studied on its own terms, ‘as it actually was’. However, this more detached approach to the past can put historians in conflict with people who feel their cherished versions of the past are under threat.

'H“历史意识”是一个含义模糊的词。它可以被视为一种普遍的心理属性,源于我们每个人在某种意义上都是历史学家。因为我们这个物种更依赖经验而非本能,所以没有个人过往的意识,生活便无法存在;而那些因疾病或衰老而失去这种意识的人,通常被认为无法融入正常生活。作为个体,我们以各种不同的方式利用经验——将其作为肯定自身身份的手段,作为探寻自身潜能的线索,作为我们印象他人的基础,以及作为对未来可能性的某种预示。我们的记忆既是数据银行,也是理解人生故事展开的途径。我们知道,如果不了解某个情境在某个持续进程中的位置,或者它是否曾经发生过,我们就无法理解它。这同样适用于我们作为社会性动物的生活。所有社会都拥有集体记忆,一个储存经验的宝库,人们从中汲取身份认同感和方向感。专业历史学家通常对大众历史知识的肤浅感到惋惜,但过去的了解几乎是普遍存在的;缺乏这种了解,人们实际上会被排除在社会和政治辩论之外,正如记忆丧失会使人无法参与许多日常人际交往一样。无论我们是在权衡不同政党的诉求,还是评估特定政策的可行性,我们的政治判断都深受历史意识的影响。为了理解我们的社会结构,我们需要了解它们的由来。从这个意义上讲,所有社会都拥有“记忆”。

‘Historical awareness’ is a slippery term. It can be regarded as a universal psychological attribute, arising from the fact that we are, all of us, in a sense historians. Because our species depends more on experience than on instinct, life cannot be lived without the consciousness of a personal past; and someone who has lost it through illness or ageing is generally regarded as disqualified from normal life. As individuals we draw on our experience in all sorts of different ways – as a means of affirming our identity, as a clue to our potential, as the basis for our impression of others, and as some indication of the possibilities that lie ahead. Our memories serve as both a data bank and a means of making sense of an unfolding life story. We know that we cannot understand a situation without some perception of where it fits into a continuing process or whether it has happened before. The same holds true of our lives as social beings. All societies have a collective memory, a storehouse of experience that is drawn on for a sense of identity and a sense of direction. Professional historians commonly deplore the superficiality of popular historical knowledge, but some knowledge of the past is almost universal; without it one is effectively excluded from social and political debate, just as loss of memory disqualifies one from much everyday human interaction. Our political judgements are permeated by a sense of the past, whether we are deciding between the competing claims of political parties or assessing the feasibility of particular policies. To understand our social arrangements, we need to have some notion of where they have come from. In that sense all societies possess ‘memory’.

但“历史意识”与社会记忆并非同一概念。人们如何了解过去以及如何将过去应用于当下的需求,存在着多种多样的理解方式。我们从个人经验中得知,记忆既非一成不变,也非绝对可靠:我们会遗忘,我们会将早期的记忆与后来的经历叠加,我们会转移关注点,我们会接受虚假的记忆,等等。在重要的事情上,我们往往会从外部来源寻求对记忆的印证。集体记忆也同样存在扭曲,因为我们当前的优先事项会让我们强调过去的某些方面,而忽略其他方面。尤其在我们的政治生活中,记忆具有高度的选择性,有时甚至完全错误。正是在这一点上,“历史意识”一词需要更严谨的解读。在第三帝国时期,那些认为德国历史上所有灾难都是犹太人造成的德国人,无疑承认了历史的力量,但我们肯定会质疑他们的历史意识究竟有多强。换句话说,仅仅提及过去是不够的;人们还必须相信,还原历史真相至关重要。历史作为一门严谨的探究学科,旨在尽可能广泛地定义记忆,并力求使回忆过程尽可能准确,从而使我们对过去的认知不局限于眼前的关联。其目标是构建一种具有开放应用前景的资源,而非仅仅是当下的镜像。至少在过去的两个世纪里,这一直是历史学家们的追求。本书的大部分篇幅将用于评估历史学家们在多大程度上实现了这些目标。在本章中,我的目的是探讨社会记忆的不同维度,并以此来理解历史学家们的工作内容及其与其他历史思考方式的区别。

But ‘historical awareness’ is not the same thing as social memory. How the past is known and how it is applied to present need are open to widely varying approaches. We know from personal experience that memory is neither fixed nor infallible: we forget, we overlay early memories with later experience, we shift the emphasis, we entertain false memories, and so on. In important matters we are likely to seek confirmation of our memories from an outside source. Collective memory is marked by the same distortions, as our current priorities lead us to highlight some aspects of the past and to exclude others. In our political life especially, memory is highly selective, and sometimes downright erroneous. It is at this point that the term ‘historical awareness’ invites a more rigorous interpretation. Under the Third Reich those Germans who believed that all the disasters in German history were the fault of the Jews certainly acknowledged the power of the past, but we would surely question the extent of their historical awareness. In other words, it is not enough to invoke the past; there must also be a belief that getting the story right matters. History as a disciplined enquiry aims to sustain the widest possible definition of memory, and to make the process of recall as accurate as possible, so that our knowledge of the past is not confined to what is immediately relevant. The goal is a resource with open-ended application, instead of a set of mirror-images of the present. That at least has been the aspiration of historians for the past two centuries. Much of this book will be devoted to evaluating how adequately historians achieve these ends. My purpose in this opening chapter is to explore the different dimensions of social memory, and in so doing to arrive at an understanding of what historians do and how it differs from other sorts of thinking about the past.

第三帝国

Third Reich

1933-1945 年德国国家社会主义(纳粹)政权的正式术语。Reich(大致意为“帝国”)用来指代最初的中世纪德意志帝国和统一的德意志帝国(第二帝国),后者从 1871 年持续到 1919 年。

The technical term for the National Socialist (Nazi) regime in Germany, 1933–45. Reich (roughly ‘Empire’) was used to denote the original medieval German Empire and the unified German Empire (the Second Reich), which lasted from 1871 to 1919.

I

社会记忆:群体自我认同的建构

Social memory: creating the self-identity of a group

任何社会群体要想拥有集体认同,就必须对塑造该群体的事件和经历达成共识。有时,这种共识会包含对群体起源的普遍认知,例如许多民族国家的情况;有时,则侧重于那些鲜明的转折点和象征性时刻,这些时刻强化了群体的自我认知和抱负。例如,爱德华时代的妇女参政权运动对妇女运动的至关重要性,以及18世纪伦敦“莫莉之家”亚文化对当今英国同性恋群体的吸引力。 1如果缺乏对由如此丰富的人性细节构成的共同历史的认知,人们就很难认同那些宏大抽象概念对他们忠诚的诉求。

For any social grouping to have a collective identity there has to be a shared interpretation of the events and experiences that have formed the group over time. Sometimes this will include an accepted belief about the origins of the group, as in the case of many nation-states; or the emphasis may be on vivid turning points and symbolic moments that confirm the self-image and aspirations of the group. Current examples include the vital significance of the Edwardian suffrage movement for the women’s movement, and the appeal of the ‘molly house’ sub-culture of eighteenth-century London for the gay community in Britain today.1 Without an awareness of a common past made up of such human detail, men and women could not easily acknowledge the claims on their loyalty of large abstractions.

爱德华时代的妇女参政权运动

Edwardian suffrage movement

第一次世界大战前争取女性议会选举权(“妇女参政权”)的运动。该运动以激进派妇女参政权运动最为人所知,但最终在1918年为女性争取到选举权的是较为温和的妇女参政权运动者。

The movement in the period before the First World War to obtain the parliamentary vote (‘suffrage’) for women. It is best known for campaigns of the militant suffragettes, although it was the more moderate suffragists who finally obtained votes for women in 1918.

莫莉之家

molly house

十八世纪,同性恋男子秘密聚会场所“莫莉之家”鲜为人知,直到马克·雷文希尔的戏剧《克拉普妈妈的莫莉之家》(2001 年)在伦敦皇家国家剧院上演并获得广泛赞誉。

An eighteenth-century covert meeting house for homosexual men. Molly houses remained little known until Mark Ravenhill’s play Mother Clapp’s Molly House (2001) was staged to widespread acclaim at the Royal National Theatre in London.

“社会记忆”一词准确地反映了大众对过去的认知逻辑。社会群体需要对过往经验的记录,同时也需要一幅能够解释或证明当下存在的过去图景,而这往往以牺牲历史准确性为代价。在那些无法诉诸文献记录作为纠正或更高权威的社会中,社会记忆的运作最为明显。前殖民时代的非洲便是几个典型的例子。在识字社会中,对于那些主要不识字、处于精英阶层之外的群体,例如前现代欧洲的农民,情况也是如此。在这些群体中,历史知识以叙事的形式代代相传,通常与特定的地点、仪式或习俗联系在一起。它为人们的行为提供了指导,也提供了一套符号体系,人们可以围绕这些符号体系来抵制不受欢迎的入侵。直到不久前,在文盲率极高的西西里岛,人们普遍将1282年巴勒莫反抗安茹王朝的起义(“西西里晚祷”)和19世纪的黑手党视为民族复仇兄弟情谊传统中的插曲。3

The term ‘social memory’ accurately reflects the rationale of popular knowledge about the past. Social groupings need a record of prior experience, but they also require a picture of the past that serves to explain or justify the present, often at the cost of historical accuracy. The operation of social memory is clearest in those societies where no appeal can be made to the documentary record as a corrective or higher authority. Pre-colonial Africa presents some classic instances.2 In literate societies the same was true for those largely unlettered communities that lay outside the elite, such as the peasantries of pre-modern Europe. What counted for historical knowledge here was handed down as a narrative from one generation to the next, often identified with particular places and particular ceremonies or rituals. It provided a guide for conduct and a set of symbols around which resistance to unwelcome intrusion could be mobilized. Until quite recently popular memory in a largely illiterate Sicily embraced both the Palermo rising of 1282 against the Angevins (the ‘Sicilian Vespers’) and the nineteenth-century Mafia as episodes in a national tradition of avenging brotherhood.3

但认为社会记忆仅限于小型、前文字社会则是一种误解。事实上,这个概念本身就凸显了一种普遍的需求:如果个人离不开记忆,那么社会也离不开记忆,这同样适用于大型社会。即使是科技发达的社会也一样。所有社会都会从集体记忆中寻求慰藉或灵感,识字社会原则上也不例外。近乎全民识字和高度的人口流动性意味着口头传承社会记忆的重要性已大大降低。但书面记录(例如学校历史教科书或对世界大战的通俗描述)、电影和电视仍然发挥着同样的作用。社会记忆仍然是维系政治认同的重要手段。其成功与否取决于它对集体凝聚力的贡献程度以及群体成员的共享范围。有时,社会记忆建立在共识和包容之上,这通常是明确的国家叙事的功能。它可以采取建国神话的形式,例如美国共和国富有远见的开国元勋们的故事,他们的事迹至今仍被人们铭记,以巩固对美国民族的信念。或者,共识记忆可以聚焦于某个英雄时刻,例如……1940 年的敦刻尔克大撤退,被英国人视为奠定胜利基础的巧妙逃亡(详见第 11 章)。

But it would be a mistake to suppose that social memory is the preserve of small-scale, pre-literate societies. In fact the term itself highlights a universal need: if the individual cannot exist without memory, neither can society, and that goes for large-scale technologically advanced societies too. All societies look to their collective memories for consolation or inspiration, and literate societies are in principle no different. Near-universal literacy and a high degree of residential mobility mean that the oral transmission of social memory is now much less important. But written accounts (such as school history books or popular evocations of the World Wars), film and television perform the same function. Social memory continues to be an essential means of sustaining a politically active identity. Its success is judged by how effectively it contributes to collective cohesion and how widely it is shared by members of the group. Sometimes social memory is based on consensus and inclusion, and this is often the function of explicitly national narratives. It can take the form of a foundation myth, as in the case of the far-seeing Founding Fathers of the American Republic, whose memory is still invoked today in order to shore up belief in the American nation. Alternatively, consensual memory can focus on a moment of heroism, like the story of Dunkirk in 1940, which the British recall as the ingenious escape that laid the foundations of victory (see Chapter 11 for fuller discussion).

奠基神话

foundation myth

一个关于某个群体或民族起源的故事,通常备受珍视。其中最著名的故事之一是圣经中的创世故事。许多国家都有半官方的起源版本,通常涉及民族英雄人物,但建国神话也存在于学校、军队甚至公司中。“神话”一词并不一定意味着故事完全是虚构的,而仅仅意味着它已经演变成一种简化的、通常带有美好色彩的事件版本。

A story, usually much-treasured, about the foundation of a group or people. One of the most famous is the biblical story of the Creation. Nations often have semi-‘official’ versions of their origins, usually involving national hero figures, but foundation myths can be found in schools, army regiments and even companies. ‘Myth’ need not imply that the story is entirely false, merely that it has developed into a simplistic, usually rosy, version of events.

建国神话:1776年美国“开国元勋”发表的《独立宣言》是美国历史上具有重大象征意义的标志性时刻。美国学校历史教科书至今仍以英雄主义的笔调来描述它。(布里奇曼艺术图书馆/国会收藏,美国华盛顿)

Foundation myth: the Declaration of Independence by America’s ‘Founding Fathers’ in 1776 remains an iconic moment in American history of immense symbolic importance. American school history books still present it in resolutely heroic terms. (Bridgeman Art Library/Capitol Collection, Washington, USA)

对过去压迫的社会记忆

Social memory of past oppression

但社会记忆也能维系压迫感、排斥感或逆境感,而这些因素也构成了社会记忆最强有力的表现形式。首次进入政治舞台的社会运动尤其意识到历史的绝对必要性。美国黑人历史的起源可以追溯到马尔科姆·X在20世纪60年代提出的那种战略性关切。他写道,黑人遭受压迫的原因之一是,白人主导的美国社会切断了他们与过去的联系:

But social memory can also serve to sustain a sense of oppression, exclusion or adversity, and these elements account for some of the most powerful expressions of social memory. Social movements entering the political arena for the first time are particularly conscious of the absolute requirement of a past. Black history in the United States has its origin in the kind of strategic concern voiced by Malcolm X in the 1960s. One reason why blacks were oppressed, he wrote, was that white America had cut them off from their past:

如果我们不去回顾过去,找出我们变成现在这样的原因,我们就会认为自己一直都是这样。如果你认为自己一直处于现在的状态,你就不可能对自己充满信心,你会变得毫无价值,几乎一文不值。4

If we don’t go into the past and find out how we got this way, we will think that we were always this way. And if you think that you were in the condition that you’re in right now, it’s impossible for you to have too much confidence in yourself, you become worthless, almost nothing.4

英国劳工史研究的很大一部分目的在于增强工人的社会意识,巩固他们对政治行动的决心,并让他们相信,只要他们秉承先辈的英雄主义精神,历史就会站在他们这边。正如《历史工作坊杂志》创刊号社论所言,对劳动人民经历的历史重构是“灵感和理解的源泉”。 5 工人阶级关于工作、地域、家庭和政治的记忆——其中常常蕴含着自豪和愤怒——在被官方认可的民族版本从大众意识中抹去之前,被重新挖掘出来。

The purpose of much British labour history has been to sharpen the social awareness of the workers, to confirm their commitment to political action, and to reassure them that history is ‘on their side’ if only they will keep faith with the heroism of their forebears. The historical reconstruction of working people’s experience was, as the inaugural editorial of History Workshop Journal put it, ‘a source of inspiration and understanding’.5 Working-class memories of work, locality, family and politics – with all the pride and anger so often expressed through them – were rescued before they were pushed out of popular consciousness by an approved national version.

历史工作坊

History Workshop

由拉斐尔·塞缪尔(1934-96)领导的一群左翼历史学家在牛津大学拉斯金学院成立的合作研究机构,旨在鼓励对工人阶级和妇女历史的研究和辩论。

A collaborative research venture set up by a group of left-wing historians led by Raphael Samuel (1934–96) at Ruskin College, Oxford, to encourage research and debate in working-class and women’s history.

过去三十年的妇女运动更加意识到需要一个可供借鉴的历史。对女权主义者而言,研究像伊丽莎白一世这样在男性主导的世界中取得成功的杰出女性并不能满足这一需求;她们的关注点反而在于大多数女性所遭受的经济和性剥削,以及活动家们为争取权益所做的努力。在这种视角下,决定女性历史的关键因素并非民族或阶级,而是父权制:即一家之主对其妻子和子女的权力,以及由此延伸出的男性对女性的权力。更广泛地说,是女性。由于主流历史压制了这一事实,它所提供的并非普世历史,而是对半数人类的片面描述。这些主题,正如一本流行的女权主义著作的标题所言,一直“被历史所掩盖”。正如一位美国女权主义者所言:

The women’s movement of the past thirty years has been if anything more conscious of the need for a usable past. For feminists this requirement is not met by studies of exceptional women such as Elizabeth I who operated successfully in a man’s world; the emphasis falls instead on the economic and sexual exploitation that has been the lot of most women, and on the efforts of activists to secure redress. According to this perspective, the critical determinant of women’s history was not nation or class, but patriarchy: that is, the power of the household head over his wife and children and, by extension, the power of men over women more generally. Because mainstream history suppresses this truth, what it offers is not universal history but a blinkered account of half the human race. These are the themes which, to quote from the title of a popular feminist text, have been ‘hidden from history’.6 As one American feminist has put it:

父权制

Patriarchy

以父亲的统治地位为基础的社会制度,进而以男性的统治地位为基础。

A social system based on the dominance of fathers, and, by extension, of men in general.

大多数女性认为她们的性别没有有趣或重要的历史,这并不奇怪。然而,如同少数群体一样,女性不能缺乏集体认同感,而这种认同感必然包含对历史的共同认知。否则,一个社会群体就会患上一种集体失忆症,使其容易受到可疑刻板印象的束缚,以及对自身行为规范的限制性偏见。7

It is not surprising that most women feel that their sex does not have an interesting or significant past. However, like minority groups, women cannot afford to lack a consciousness of a collective identity, one which necessarily involves a shared awareness of the past. Without this, a social group suffers from a kind of collective amnesia, which makes it vulnerable to the impositions of dubious stereotypes, as well as limiting prejudices about what is right and proper for it to do or not to do.7

对于社会弱势群体或“隐形”群体——无论是像工人和妇女这样的多数群体,还是像美国和英国的黑人这样的少数群体——有效的政治动员取决于对过去共同经验的认识。

For socially deprived or ‘invisible’ groups – whether in a majority such as workers and women, or in a minority such as blacks in America and Britain – effective political mobilization depends on a consciousness of common experience in the past.

II

历史主义——将过去从现在中解放出来

Historicism – liberating the past from the present

然而,与这些受社会因素驱动的历史观并存的,是一种基于截然不同前提的历史意识。尽管社会记忆不断衍生出满足新的政治和社会需求的诠释,历史研究的主流方法仍然是珍视历史本身,并尽可能超越政治权宜之计。直到十九世纪,这种更为严谨的历史意识才成为专业历史学家的标志性特征。当然,此前也存在一些重要的先驱——古代世界、伊斯兰世界、中国王朝以及文艺复兴以来的西方世界。但直到十九世纪上半叶,历史意识的所有要素才被整合为一种被广泛认可为研究历史的正确方法的历史实践。这便是历史主义思想运动的成就,该运动起源于德国,并迅速传播到整个西方世界(该词源于德语“ Historismus ”)。

But alongside these socially motivated views of the past has grown up a form of historical awareness that starts from quite different premises. While social memory has continued to open up interpretations that satisfy new forms of political and social need, the dominant approach in historical scholarship has been to value the past for its own sake and, as far as possible, to rise above political expediency. It was only during the nineteenth century that historical awareness in this more rigorous sense became the defining attribute of professional historians. There were certainly important precursors – in the ancient world, in Islam, in dynastic China, and in the West from the Renaissance onwards. But it was not until the first half of the nineteenth century that all the elements of historical awareness were brought together in a historical practice that was widely recognized as the proper way to study the past. This was the achievement of the intellectual movement known as historicism, which began in Germany and soon spread all over the Western world (the word comes from the German Historismus).

历史主义者的基本前提是必须尊重过去的自主性。他们认为每个时代都应该被尊重。历史是人类精神的独特体现,拥有其自身的文化和价值观。一个时代要理解另一个时代,就必须认识到时间的流逝深刻地改变了人们的生活条件和思维方式——甚至可能改变了人性本身。历史学家并非普世价值的守护者,也无法做出“历史的判决”;他们必须努力从每个时代自身的视角去理解,接受其自身的价值观和优先事项,而不是将我们自己的价值观和优先事项强加于人。所有学术资源和历史学家的想象力都必须用于重现过去——或者用当时流行的比喻来说,就是“复活”过去。但历史主义不仅仅是古物研究者的口号。它的拥护者认为,只有从历史的角度才能理解当时的文化和制度。除非把握它们在各个时代中的成长和发展,否则它们的真正本质将永远难以捉摸。简而言之,历史掌握着理解世界的关键。

The fundamental premise of the historicists was that the autonomy of the past must be respected. They held that each age is a unique manifestation of the human spirit, with its own culture and values. For one age to understand another, there must be a recognition that the passage of time has profoundly altered both the conditions of life and the mentality of men and women – even perhaps human nature itself. Historians are not the guardians of universal values, nor can they deliver ‘the verdict of history’; they must strive to understand each age in its own terms, to take on its own values and priorities, instead of imposing ours. All the resources of scholarship and all the historian’s powers of imagination must be harnessed to the task of bringing the past back to life – or resurrecting it, to employ a favourite conceit of the period. But historicism was more than an antiquarian rallying cry. Its proponents maintained that the culture and institutions of their own day could only be understood historically. Unless their growth and development through successive ages were grasped, their true nature would remain elusive. History, in short, held the key to understanding the world.

透过过去的视角来看世界

Seeing through the eyes of the past

历史主义是浪漫主义的一个方面,浪漫主义是1800年前后欧洲思想和艺术的主导运动。最具影响力的浪漫主义文学家沃尔特·斯科特爵士致力于将读者带入他的历史浪漫小说所营造的真实历史氛围中。人们对历史遗迹的兴趣空前高涨,这种兴趣不仅延伸到古代世界,也延伸到此前备受轻视的中世纪。历史主义代表了浪漫主义对历史痴迷的学术化分支。该运动的领军人物是利奥波德·冯·兰克,他于1824年至1872年在柏林大学任教,著有六十余部著作。在他的第一本书的序言中,他写道:

Historicism was one facet of Romanticism, the dominant movement in European thought and art around 1800. The most influential Romantic literary figure, Sir Walter Scott, aimed to draw readers of his historical romances into the authentic atmosphere of the past. Popular interest in the surviving remains of the past rose to new heights, and it extended to not only the ancient world but also the hitherto despised Middle Ages. Historicism represented the academic wing of the Romantic obsession with the past. The leading figure in the movement was Leopold von Ranke, a professor at Berlin University from 1824 until 1872 and author of over sixty volumes. In the preface to his first book, he wrote:

历史被赋予了评判过去、指导现在以造福后世的重任。本书并不追求如此崇高的职能。它的目的仅仅在于展现事物真实面貌。8

History has had assigned to it the task of judging the past, of instructing the present for the benefit of the ages to come. To such lofty functions this work does not aspire. Its aim is merely to show how things actually were [wie es eigentlich gewesen].8

兰克此意并非仅仅指重构事件的进程,尽管这无疑是他研究纲领的一部分。9历史主义者方法的新颖之处在于他们意识到,如果要重构事件的正式记录,那么过去时代的氛围和心态也必须一并重构。要想赋予历史意义,历史学家的主要任务就是设身处地地站在人们的角度思考,通过他们的视角看待世界,并尽可能地用他们的标准来评判世界,从而探究人们行为背后的原因。托马斯·卡莱尔比任何其他十九世纪的作家都更热衷于历史重现;他宣称,无论历史研究的目的是什么,“首要的必要条件”是“我们要看到正在发生的事情,完整地描绘它们,仿佛它们就发生在我们眼前”。 10这种义务适用于过去的所有时期,无论它们在现代观察者看来多么陌生。兰克本人在研究十六、十七世纪的宗教战争时,也力求达到历史主义的理想。其他人也以同样的精神研究中世纪。

By this Ranke meant more than an intention to reconstruct the passage of events, though this was certainly part of his programme.9 What was new about the historicists’ approach was their realization that the atmosphere and mentality of past ages had to be reconstructed too, if the formal record of events was to have any meaning. The main task of the historian became to find out why people acted as they did by stepping into their shoes, by seeing the world through their eyes and as far as possible by judging it by their standards. Thomas Carlyle believed more fervently in historical recreation than any other nineteenth-century writer; whatever the purpose of historical work, ‘the first indispensable condition’, he declared, was that ‘we see the things transacted, picture them wholly, as if they stand before our eyes’.10 And this obligation extended to all periods in the past, however alien they might seem to modern observers. Ranke himself strove to meet the historicist ideal in his treatment of the wars of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Others tackled the Middle Ages in the same spirit.

托马斯·卡莱尔(1795–1881)

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)

他是一位颇受欢迎但又颇具争议的维多利亚时代作家和历史学家。他撰写了一部篇幅很长、内容生动的法国大革命史。

A popular, though controversial, Victorian writer and historian. He was the author of a long, colourful account of the French Revolution.

兰克广为引用的前言也至关重要,因为它明确指出了历史研究的现实意义。兰克并非认为历史研究本身毫无用处;事实上,他可能是最后一位相信像他这样的研究最终会揭示上帝在人类历史中扮演的角色的重要历史学家。但他并不寻求从历史中汲取实用经验。事实上,他认为超脱于当下的种种考量是理解历史的必要条件。他​​对以往历史学家的批评并非在于他们缺乏好奇心或同理心,而在于他们因渴望说教、传授治国之道或维护统治王朝的声誉而偏离了真正的研究任务;在追求眼前目标的过程中,他们掩盖了历史研究中应有的真正智慧。下一章我将更深入地探讨“现实意义”是否必然与历史意识相悖这一问题。但在十九世纪上半叶,法国大革命后的欧洲动荡不安,历史也因此充满了政治争议。除非人们将超脱世俗奉为圭臬,否则很难想象一种严谨的学术历史研究方法能够得以确立。尽管如今很少有人阅读兰克的著作,但他的名字依然代表着一种至高无上的公正,以及首先要忠于历史的原则。

Ranke’s much-quoted preface is also important as a disclaimer of relevance. Ranke did not maintain that historical research served no purpose outside itself; indeed, he was probably the last major historian to believe that the outcome of studies such as his own would be to reveal the hand of God in human history. But he did not look for practical lessons from the past. Indeed he believed that detachment from present-day concerns was a condition of understanding the past. His objection to previous historians was not that they lacked all curiosity or empathy but that they were diverted from the real task by the desire to preach, or to give lessons in statecraft, or to shore up the reputation of a ruling dynasty; in pursuing immediate goals they obscured the true wisdom to be derived from historical study. In the next chapter I will consider more fully the question of whether relevance is necessarily incompatible with historical awareness. But during the first half of the nineteenth century, when Europe experienced a high degree of turbulence in the aftermath of the French Revolution, history was politically contentious, and unless a special virtue had been made of detachment, it is hard to see how a scholarly historical practice could have become established. Though very few people read Ranke today, his name continues to stand for an Olympian impartiality and a duty to be true to the past before all else.

共情

empathy

同理心是指能够设身处地地感受他人的感受(不要与同情混淆,同情指的是真正地感同身受)。这个术语常用来描述历史学家看待过去社会“异质性”的方法。20世纪80年代,曾有一项最终以失败告终的尝试,试图评估儿童对过去人们的同理心能力,以用于考试目的。

The ability to enter into the feelings of others (not to be confused with sympathy, which denotes actually sharing them). The term is often used to describe a historian’s approach to the ‘foreignness’ of past societies. In the 1980s there was an ultimately ill-fated attempt to assess children’s ability to empathize with people in the past for examination purposes.

法国大革命

French Revolution

十八世纪末法国发生的动荡政治事件推翻了君主制,建立了一个基于人权原则的共和国。这场运动伴随着相当大的暴力和长期的政治动荡,直到1799年拿破仑发动军事政变。

The tumultuous political events in late eighteenth-century France which overturned the monarchy and established a republic based upon the principles of the Rights of Man. It involved considerable violence and chronic political instability, until Napoleon staged a military coup in 1799.

奥运选手

Olympian

超脱尘世,远离尘嚣,如同奥林匹斯山上的希腊诸神。

Detached and remote, like the Greek gods on Mount Olympus.

过去的“他者性”

The ‘otherness’ of the past

历史学家所理解的历史意识建立在三个原则之上。第一个也是最根本的原则是:差异;也就是说,要认识到我们所处的时代与以往所有时代之间存在的巨大鸿沟。因为历史并非一成不变,时间的流逝深刻地改变了我们的生活方式。历史学家的首要责任是衡量过去与我们之间的差异;反之,最严重的罪过之一就是时代错置——不假思索地认为过去的人的行为和思想与我们相同。这种差异部分体现在物质生活条件上,这一点有时会被遗留下来的古代遗迹所有力地证明,例如建筑物、工具和服饰。不太明显但更为重要的是,这种差异体现在心态上:前人的价值观、优先事项、恐惧和希望与我们截然不同。我们或许会把自然之美视为理所当然,但中世纪的男男女女却对森林和山脉充满恐惧,并且尽可能地避免偏离既定路线。在18世纪末的英国乡村,分居和再婚有时是通过公开买卖妻子来实现的;尽管这在一定程度上是对穷人几乎不可能合法离婚的一种反应,但现代读者很难不去思考妻子被丈夫用绳索牵着押往市场所遭受的羞辱中所蕴含的极端父权价值观。 11在同一时期,伦敦的公开绞刑经常吸引三万甚至更多的人群围观,其中既有富人也有穷人,而且通常女性多于男性。他们的动机各不相同:可能是为了伸张正义,可能是为了从死刑犯的举止中吸取教训,也可能是为了表达对他的死亡的愤慨;但所有人都乐于目睹这种冷血残忍的行为,而这种行为在今天大多数人看来都会令人毛骨悚然。 12近代的一些时期或许没有那么奇怪,但我们仍然需要警惕许多差异的迹象。在维多利亚时代中期的英国,一位有思想、受过教育的人可能会将伦敦东区拥挤的贫民描述为“腐肉中颤抖的蛆虫13

Historical awareness in the sense understood by the historicists rests on three principles. The first, and most fundamental, is difference; that is, a recognition of the gulf that separates our own age from all previous ages. Because nothing in history stands still, the passage of time has profoundly altered the way we live. The first responsibility of the historian is to take the measure of the difference of the past; conversely one of the worst sins is anachronism – the unthinking assumption that people in the past behaved and thought as we do. This difference is partly about the material conditions of life, a point sometimes forcibly made by the surviving remains of the past such as buildings, implements and clothing. Less obviously, but even more importantly, the difference is one of mentality: earlier generations had different values, priorities, fears and hopes from our own. We may take the beauties of nature for granted, but medieval men and women were terrified of forests and mountains and strayed from the beaten track as little as possible. In late eighteenth-century rural England, separation and remarriage were sometimes achieved by means of a public wife-sale; although this was in part a reaction to the virtual impossibility of legal divorce for the poor, it is hard for the modern reader not to dwell on the extreme patriarchal values implied in the humiliation of a wife led to market by her husband and held by a halter.11 During the same period public hangings in London regularly drew crowds of 30,000 or more, both rich and poor, and usually more women than men. Their motivation varied: it might be to see justice done, to draw lessons from the deportment of the condemned man or to register indignation at his death; but all shared a readiness to gaze on an act of cold-blooded cruelty from which most people today would recoil in horror.12 More recent periods may not be so strange, but we still have to be alert to many evidences of difference. In mid-Victorian England it was possible for a thoughtful educated person to describe the teaming poor of East London as a ‘trembling mass of maggots in a lump of carrion’.13

时代错置

anachronism

历史错误是指将一个历史时期(通常是现在)的元素插入到较早的历史时期中,例如在历史电影和戏剧中使用现代语言或态度。

A historical inaccuracy in which elements from one historical period (usually the present) are inserted into an earlier one, such as the use of modern language or attitudes in historical films and dramas.

腐肉

carrion

食腐动物赖以生存的动物尸体。

The carcasses of dead animals on which scavengers feed.

近年来,历史同理心在课堂教学中备受推崇,人们通常将其理解为认识到我们与先辈共享的共同人性;但对同理心更现实(也更严谨)的解读则着重于理解过去思维模式所需的想象力,因为这些思维模式与我们自身的经验截然不同。正如小说家L.P.哈特利所言,“过去是一个异国他乡”。 14当然,如同所有异国他乡一样,过去也并非完全陌生。除了令人反感的冲击之外,历史学家们也……体验到那种恍然大悟的震撼——例如,当他们发现十七世纪英国父母对待子女时那种自然而然的真诚,或者揭开十八世纪伦敦的消费主义文化时。“所有历史,”有人说,“都是熟悉与陌生之间的博弈。” ¹⁵但在任何学术探究中,过去的异质性往往更为突出,因为时间的流逝使曾经习以为常的事物变得充满异域风情。

Historical empathy, which has been much vaunted in classroom practice in recent years, is often taken to mean a recognition of the common humanity we share with our forebears; but a more realistic (and also more rigorous) interpretation of empathy dwells on the effort of imagination needed to penetrate past mentalities, which are irremediably removed from anything in our experience. As the novelist L.P. Hartley remarked, ‘The past is a foreign country’.14 Of course, like all foreign lands, the past is never entirely alien. As well as the shock of revulsion, historians experience the shock of recognition – as when they come across unaffected spontaneity in the behaviour of parents towards children in seventeenth-century England, or uncover the consumerist culture of eighteenth-century London. ‘All history’, it has been said, ‘is a negotiation between familiarity and strangeness’.15 But in any scholarly enquiry it is the otherness of the past that tends to come to the fore because the passage of time has made exotic what once seemed commonplace.

LP Hartley(1895–1972)

L.P. Hartley (1895–1972)

英国小说家。他的小说《信使》讲述了一个男孩为一对恋人传递信息的故事,故事以男孩长大成人后的回忆展开。小说的开篇之句“过去就像一个异国他乡,那里的人们行事方式截然不同”被历史学家广泛引用,用来警示人们将现代观念强加于过去时代的危险性。

British novelist. His novel The Go-Between, about a young boy who carries messages between a pair of lovers, is told through the memory of the boy grown to adulthood. The novel’s opening line, ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’ has been adopted by historians trying to put across the dangers of imposing modern assumptions on previous ages.

我们衡量与过去距离的方式之一是进行历史分期。以世纪为界进行划分以及纪念百年纪念都具有这种效果。而历史学家自己创造的标签则更为重要,因为这些标签表达了他们对特定时期特征的看法。正如卢德米拉·约尔达诺娃所观察到的,“标记时间是历史学家的职责”。<​​sup> 16这些标签中最令人困惑的是“近代”。直到19世纪,人们通常将罗马帝国灭亡以来的所有历史都称为“近代史”。在大学里,“近代史”有时仍然以这种宽泛的含义使用(这也是本书副标题的由来)。然而,在大多数当代语境中,“近代”的含义更为狭窄。它通常与19世纪的工业化和大众社会(在消费、政治和文化方面)的兴起联系在一起。古代和现代之间的过渡时期被划分为中世纪和近代早期,而15世纪通常被视为连接这两个时期的桥梁。这些术语对历史学家来说不可或缺,但它们本身却充满矛盾。一方面,它们标志着历史的差异(我们并非“早期现代”);但另一方面,它们也给过去的人们贴上了对他们而言毫无意义的标签。换言之,这些术语代表了一种后见之明的诠释行为——当历史学家们争论不同版本的优劣时,这一点就显而易见了。还应该指出的是,这些标签带有欧洲中心主义色彩,很难将其应用于世界其他地区的历史叙述。17

One of the ways in which we measure our distance from the past is by periodization. Labelling by century has this effect, as does the recognition of centenaries. More significant are the labels devised by historians themselves, since these express a view about the characteristics of the period concerned. As Ludmilla Jordanova has observed, ‘marking time is the business of historians’.16 The most vexed of these labels is ‘modern’. Until the nineteenth century it was common to refer to all history since the fall of the Roman Empire as ‘modern’. In universities ‘modern history’ is still sometimes used in that generic sense (hence the subtitle of this book). In most current contexts, however, ‘modern’ has a narrower focus. It is identified with industrialization and the coming of mass society (in consumption, politics and culture) during the nineteenth century. The intervening epochs between the ancient and modern worlds are divided up between the medieval and early modern periods, with the fifteenth century usually treated as the bridge between the two. These terms are indispensable to historians, but they are paradoxical. In one sense they signal historical difference (we are not ‘early modern’); but they also impose on the people of the past labels that had no meaning for them. In other words, they represent an act of interpretation, devised with the benefit of hindsight – and patently so when historians argue about the merits of different versions. It should also be noted that these labels are Eurocentric, and that they cannot easily be applied to histories in other parts of the world.17

将“他者性”置于语境中

Putting ‘otherness’ in context

仅仅是记录跨越时空鸿沟的这些差异,就能给我们的现代观念带来有益的冲击。但历史学家的目标远不止于此。他们的目的不仅在于揭示过去的奇异之处,更在于解释它,这意味着要将其置于历史背景之中。当我们把某些在我们看来怪诞或令人不安的事件解读为特定社会的一种表现形式时,它们就变得可以解释——尽管未必会因此而减少震惊。对早期现代欧洲巫术指控的骇人细节感到恐惧,固然承认了那个时代与我们当今时代之间的巨大鸿沟,但这仅仅是一个出发点。我们现在对这种现象的理解比三十年前要深刻得多,原因在于历史学家们将其置于关于人体的信仰、教会之外的大众宗教信仰框架以及女性地位的紧张关系中进行考察。因此,语境 历史意识的第二个组成部分。所有历史研究的基本原则是,我们研究的对象绝不能脱离其所处的背景。正如我们不会在未仔细记录考古发现的确切位置之前就对其意义妄下断言一样,我们也必须将我们所了解的关于过去的一切置于其当时的语境之中。这是一个严苛的标准,需要渊博的知识。这往往是区分专业人士和业余爱好者的关键所在。在当地档案馆从事家谱研究的爱好者,只需稍加技术指导,就能证实一系列出生、结婚和死亡的记录,这些记录往往跨越数代;而业余爱好者遇到的困难并非在于事实的遗漏,而是由于对相关的经济或社会背景缺乏足够的了解。对社会史学家而言,家族史的本质并非在于血统谱系,甚至也并非在于绘制历代平均家庭规模的曲线;而在于将家族置于不断变化的家庭生产、健康、宗教、教育和国家政策等背景之中。 19历史学家接受的训练无一例外地反对将过去呈现为一条固定不变的单一事件序列;在每一个环节都必须尊重历史背景。

Merely to register such instances of difference across the gulf of time can give a salutary jolt to our modern assumptions. But historians aim to go much further than this. Their purpose is not only to uncover the strangeness of the past but to explain it, and that means placing it in its historical setting. What may seem bizarre or disturbing to us becomes explicable – though not necessarily less shocking – when interpreted as a manifestation of a particular society. To recoil in horror from the grisly details of witchcraft accusations in early modern Europe is certainly to acknowledge the gulf that separates that time from ours, but this is no more than a point of departure. The reason why we understand this phenomenon so much better now than we did thirty years ago is that historians have positioned it in relation to beliefs about the human body, the framework of popular religious belief outside the Church, and the tensions in the position of women.18 Context is thus the second component of historical awareness. The underlying principle of all historical work is that the subject of our enquiry must not be wrenched from its setting. Just as we would not pronounce on the significance of an archaeological find without first recording carefully its precise location in the site, so we must place everything we know about the past in its contemporary context. This is an exacting standard, requiring a formidable breadth of knowledge. It is often what distinguishes the professional from the amateur. The enthusiast working on family history in the local record office can, with a little technical guidance, substantiate a sequence of births, marriages and deaths, often extending over many generations; the amateur will come to grief not over factual omissions but because of an inadequate grasp of the relevant economic or social settings. To the social historian, the history of the family is not fundamentally about lines of descent, or even about plotting average family size down the ages; it is about placing the family within the shifting contexts of household production, health, religion, education and state policy.19 Everything in the historian’s training militates against presenting the past as a fixed single-track sequence of events; context must be respected at every point.

历史的连续性

The historical continuum

但历史不仅仅是对过去种种片段的简单罗列,无论这些片段多么生动鲜活、背景多么丰富。历史意识的第三个基本方面是对历史进程的认识——即事件随时间推移而产生的关联,这种关联赋予了事件比孤立看待时更具意义。例如,历史学家至今仍然对18世纪末蒸汽动力在棉纺业中的应用很感兴趣。16世纪之所以引人注目,并非因为它是技术和商业创造力的杰出例证,而是因为它对后来被称为工业革命的进程做出了巨大贡献。瓜分非洲期间的特定吞并之所以引人注目,是因为它们是欧洲列强大规模帝国主义扩张的一部分;诸如此类。除了其本身的趣味性之外,我们关注这些历史进程的背后,是一个更为宏大的问题:我们是如何从“过去”走到“现在”的?这才是“大故事”,许多更为具体的探究都围绕着它展开。或许“我们”与“他们”之间存在着鸿沟,但这条鸿沟实际上是由增长、衰落和变革的过程构成的,而揭示这些过程正是历史学家的职责。因此,我们现在对16、17世纪巫术有了更全面的了解,这不禁让人思考:这种信仰是如何衰落并声名狼藉的,以至于在当今西方社会,只有极少数自觉的复兴主义者才会信奉它?历史进程有时会以突变为标志,历史仿佛加速发展——例如历史上那些伟大的革命。而在另一个极端,历史也可能几乎停滞不前,其流逝只有在几个世纪之后才能被人们所感知,例如许多前工业社会的土地利用模式或亲属关系体系。20

But history is more than a collection of snapshots of the past, however vivid and richly contextualized. A third fundamental aspect of historical awareness is the recognition of historical process – the relationship between events over time which endows them with more significance than if they were viewed in isolation. For example, historians continue to be interested in the application of steam power to cotton spinning in the late eighteenth century, not so much because it is a striking instance of technical and entrepreneurial ingenuity but because it contributed so much to what has come to be called the Industrial Revolution. Specific annexations during the Scramble for Africa attract attention because they formed part of a large-scale imperialism by the European powers; and so on. Apart from their intrinsic interest, what lies behind our concern with these instances of historical process is the much bigger question of how we got from ‘then’ to ‘now’. This is the ‘big story’ to which so many more restricted enquiries contribute. There may be a gulf between ‘us’ and ‘them’, but that gulf is actually composed of processes of growth, decay and change which it is the business of historians to uncover. Thus the fuller understanding we now have of witchcraft in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries begs the question of how this form of belief came into decline and disrepute, to the point where in Western society today it is subscribed to by only a very few self-conscious revivalists. Historical processes have sometimes been marked by abrupt transitions when history, as it were, speeded up – as in the case of the great revolutions. At the other extreme, history may almost stand still, its flow only perceptible with the hindsight of many centuries, as in patterns of land use or kinship systems in many pre-industrial societies.20

瓜分非洲

Scramble for Africa

“非洲殖民”一词用来指19世纪80年代和90年代欧洲列强几乎占领整个非洲大陆的过程。当时使用的这个词反映了人们对欧洲列强赤裸裸的贪婪的厌恶,他们为了攫取大片土地而相互争斗,完全不顾当地非洲人民的福祉。

The term given to the process by which, in the 1880s and 1890s, almost the entire African continent was taken over by European powers. The term, which was used at the time, reflects distaste at the naked greed with which the Europeans jostled with each other to grab vast areas of land with no thought at all for the welfare of the African peoples who lived there.

亲属关系系统

kinship systems

以大家庭为基础的社会体系。

Social systems based upon the extended family.

如果历史意识建立在连续性概念之上,那么这种概念具有双重意义:正如过去没有什么是一成不变的,我们的世界也是历史的产物。我们文化、行为和信仰的方方面面都是时间推移的结果。这不仅适用于基督教教会或英国君主制等历史悠久的机构——它们显然是几个世纪演变的产物——也适用于日常生活中最熟悉的方面,例如婚姻或个人卫生,而这些方面却很少被置于历史框架中考察。任何人类实践都不会停滞不前;所有实践都需要历史视角来揭示其随时间推移而发生的动态变化。这正是学生学习广泛历史领域如此重要的原因之一。目前,英国的中小学和大学过分强调文献研究和狭隘的专业化,以至于重要的历史趋势往往被忽视。

If historical awareness rests on the notion of continuum, this cuts both ways: just as nothing has remained the same in the past, so too our world is the product of history. Every aspect of our culture, behaviour and beliefs is the outcome of processes over time. This is true not only of venerable institutions such as the Christian Churches or the British monarchy, which are visibly the outcome of centuries of evolution; it applies also to the most familiar aspects of every day, such as marriage or personal hygiene, which are much less often placed in a historical frame. No human practice ever stands still; all demand a historical perspective which uncovers the dynamics of change over time. This is one reason why it is so important that students should study large swathes of history. At present in British schools and universities there is so much emphasis on the virtues of documentary study and narrow specialism that major historical trends tend to disappear from view.

可敬

venerable

值得尊敬和敬仰,尤其因其年龄和智慧。

Worthy of respect and reverence, especially by virtue of age and wisdom.

III

专业的历史意识和大众的社会记忆是否对立?

Are professional historical awareness and popular social memory in opposition?

因此,在历史学家的理解中,历史意识意味着尊重过去的自主性,并尝试在将其洞见应用于当下之前,尽可能完整地重构过去,包括其所有奇异之处。这一方案的后果是加剧了精英阶层和大众对过去态度的分歧,这种分歧一直延续至今。专业历史学家坚持长时间研读原始资料,刻意摒弃当下的成见,并展现出罕见的同理心和想象力。而大众的历史知识则往往对过去的遗迹抱有高度选择性的兴趣,充斥着当下的成见,并且很少真正从历史的角度去理解它。社会记忆的三个反复出现的特征尤其具有显著的扭曲作用。

In the sense understood by the historicists, then, historical awareness means respecting the autonomy of the past, and attempting to reconstruct it in all its strangeness before applying its insights to the present. The effect of this programme was to drive a bigger wedge between elite and popular attitudes to the past, which has persisted until today. Professional historians insist on a lengthy immersion in the primary sources, a deliberate shedding of present-day assumptions, and a rare degree of empathy and imagination. Popular historical knowledge, on the other hand, tends to a highly selective interest in the remains of the past, is shot through with present-day assumptions, and is only incidentally concerned to understand the past on its own terms. Three recurrent features of social memory have particularly significant distorting effects.

自主

autonomous

自治独立状态。

State of self-governing independence.

传统的扭曲影响

The distorting effects of tradition

首先是尊重传统。在生活的许多领域——从法庭到政治团体,从教堂到体育俱乐部——信仰和行为都受制于先例:人们假定过去的做法是指导现在行为的权威指南。尊重传统有时会被误认为是历史感,因为它包含对过去(或部分过去)的喜爱以及对过去的忠诚。但诉诸传统本身却鲜有历史性可言。对于那些既不经历变革也不期待变革的社群来说,遵循先辈的道路意义重大;对他们而言,现在和过去几乎难以区分。正因如此,尊重传统对小型前文字社会的凝聚力做出了巨大贡献——也正因如此,人类学家有时称他们为“传统社会”。但这样的条件如今已不复存在。在任何具有社会或文化变革动力的社会中,无论是对外贸易、社会等级制度还是政治制度,对传统的盲目尊重都是适得其反的。它压制了历史时期以来发生的变革;事实上,它还会带来负面影响。这种做法阻碍了人们对这些变化的关注,导致一些实际上已经过时的外在形式得以延续——或者我们可以说,这些形式已经被“历史淘汰”。英国议会制政府之所以享有盛誉,其中一个原因是议会本身拥有700年历史的声望,被誉为“议会之母”。这赋予了议会相当大的合法性:人们常说,议会经受住了时间的考验,它是宪法自由的捍卫者等等。但这同时也导致人们不愿认真思考议会的实际运作方式。自二战以来,下议院制约行政部门的能力急剧下降,但迄今为止,议会基于传统的巨大声望抑制了人们对根本性改革的呼声。传统的权威如此之大,以至于统治集团在不同时期都曾为了巩固自身声望而人为地创造传统。几乎所有与王室相关的“传统”仪式都是在维多利亚女王统治时期即兴创作的,然而,这种对特定历史背景的根植恰恰是“传统”概念所否定的。21在现代社会传统或许具有情感上的吸引力,但将其奉为生活指南往往会导致不幸的后果。

The first of these is respect for tradition. In many areas of life – from the law courts to political associations, from churches to sports clubs – belief and behaviour are governed by the weight of precedent: an assumption that what was done in the past is an authoritative guide to what should be done in the present. Respect for tradition is sometimes confused with a sense of history because it involves an affection for the past (or some of it) and a desire to keep faith with it. But there is very little of the historical about appeals to tradition. Following the path laid down by the ancestors has a great deal to be said for it in communities that neither experience change nor expect it; for them present and past can scarcely be distinguished. That is why respect for tradition contributed so much to the cohesion of society among small-scale pre-literate peoples – and why indeed they are sometimes referred to by anthropologists as ‘traditional societies’. But such conditions no longer exist. In any society with a dynamic of social or cultural change, as indicated by external trade or social hierarchy or political institutions, an uncritical respect for tradition is counterproductive. It suppresses the historical changes that have occurred in the intervening period; indeed it positively discourages any attention to those changes and leads to the continuance of outward forms that are really redundant – or which we might say have been ‘overtaken by history’. One reason for the famed stability of parliamentary government in Britain is that Parliament itself enjoys the prestige of a 700-year-old history as ‘the mother of parliaments’. This confers considerable legitimacy: one often hears it said that Parliament has stood the test of time, that it has been the upholder of constitutional liberties, and so on. But it also results in a reluctance to consider honestly how Parliament actually functions. The ability of the House of Commons to restrain the executive has declined sharply since the Second World War, but so far the immense tradition-based prestige of Parliament has blunted the demand for fundamental reform. Such is the authority of tradition that ruling groups have at various times invented it in order to bolster their prestige. Almost all the ‘traditional’ ceremonial associated with the royal family was improvised during the reign of Victoria, yet this rooting in specific historical circumstances is just what the whole notion of ‘tradition’ denies.21 In modern societies tradition may hold a sentimental appeal, but to treat it as a guide to life tends to lead to unfortunate results.

议会开幕大典。这项年度仪式的许多环节都蕴含着浓厚的历史意义,但这不应与专业、分析性的历史观混淆。事实上,这类传统有时会利用过去来掩盖当下的政治现实。(Getty Images/AFP)

The State Opening of Parliament. Much of the ritual at this annual ceremony has strong historical resonance, but this should not be confused with a professional, analytical sense of history. Such traditions can, in fact, conjure up the past to obscure the political reality of the present. (Getty Images/AFP)

民族主义的虚构传统

The invented traditions of nationalism

在民族主义问题上,对传统的尊重所带来的后果尤其令人不安。民族当然是历史的产物,同样的民族称谓在不同的时代往往意味着不同的含义。遗憾的是,历史学家们并非始终牢记这一真理。尽管十九世纪的历史学家们恪守学术原则,却难以抵挡那种将历史简化为民族建构的单一维度叙事的诱惑,许多人甚至根本没有尝试。当时的欧洲民族认同之争异常激烈,许多民族——从德国人、意大利人到波兰人、匈牙利人——都对既有的国界提出了挑战,因为他们的民族认同感被剥夺。他们对民族认同的诉求部分基于语言和共同文化,但也需要一种历史的合理性,例如重现昔日的辉煌,或是为古老的冤屈复仇——简而言之,一种能够维系民族当下士气并震慑欧洲其他强国的传统。历史学家像其他人一样,深受民众民族主义的影响,许多人认为他们的职业信条与撰写自我宣传的民族史之间并不矛盾。弗朗蒂谢克·帕拉茨基既是历史学家,也是捷克民族主义者。他将自己的两大热情融合在一系列著作中,将捷克人描绘成自古以来就热爱自由和民主的民族;1876年他去世时,人们尊称他为捷克民族之父。这类颂扬历史的作品便于人们定期举行纪念仪式,从而在民众心中强化民族认同感。塞尔维亚人每年都会纪念1389年在科索沃平原被土耳其人击败的惨痛战役,以此重申他们作为勇敢但饱受围困的民族的身份;在前南斯拉夫危机期间,他们也一直这样做。23在这种情况下,历史纷繁复杂的现实被忽略了。民族、种族和文化被统一为一个恒定的整体。其他例子遍布现代世界,从德国的纳粹到美国的黑人分离主义意识形态。这种本质主义或“永恒主义”会产生一种强烈的排他性身份认同感,但它却歪曲了历史。不仅过去所有与既定自我形象相悖的事物都被压制,而且“过去”与“现在”之间的时间间隔也被压缩,因为这种身份认同被断言为永恒不变,不受历史变迁的影响。

The consequences of respect for tradition are particularly disturbing in the case of nationalism. Nations are of course the product of history, and the same national designation has usually meant different things at different times. Unfortunately historians have not always kept this truth at the forefront of their minds. For all their scholarly principle, the nineteenth-century historicists found it hard to resist the demand for one-dimensional, nation-building history, and many did not even try. Europe was then the scene of bitterly contested national identities, as existing national boundaries were challenged by those many peoples whose sense of nationhood was denied – from the Germans and Italians to the Poles and Hungarians. Their claim to nationhood rested partly on language and common culture. But it also required a historical rationale, of past glories to be revived, or ancient wrongs to be avenged – in short, a tradition that could sustain the morale of the nation in the present and impress the other powers of Europe. Historians were caught up in popular nationalism like everyone else, and many saw no contradiction between the tenets of their profession and the writing of self-serving national histories. František Palacký was both a historian and a Czech nationalist. He combined his two great passions in a sequence of books that portrayed the Czechs as a freedom-loving and democratic people since the dawn of historical time; when he died in 1876 he was mourned as the father of the Czech nation.22 Celebratory histories of this kind lend themselves to regular rituals of commemoration, when the national self-image could be reinforced in the popular mind. Every year the Serbs mark the anniversary of their epic defeat at the hands of the Turks on the field of Kosovo Polje in 1389, and in so doing reaffirm their identity as a brave but beleaguered people; they continued to do so throughout the crisis in former Yugoslavia.23 In such instances the untidy reality of history is beside the point. Nation, race and culture are brought together as a unified constant. Other examples span the modern world from the Nazis in Germany to the ideology of black separatism in the United States. Essentialism or ‘immemorialism’ of this kind produces a powerful sense of exclusive identity, but it makes bad history. Not only is everything in the past that contradicts the required self-image suppressed; the interval between ‘then’ and ‘now’ is telescoped by the assertion of an unchanging identity, impervious to the play of historical circumstance.

本质主义

essentialism

与人民或国家的基本性质(“本质”)有关。

Relating to the basic nature (the ‘essence’) of people or nations.

在刚刚获得自治权的国家中,传统建构的过程尤为明显。这些国家强烈渴望拥有一个能够赋予自身合法性的历史,而构建民族历史的素材往往匮乏。在独立战争后的两代人时间内,美国人逐渐认同了一种令人欣慰的自我形象:他们的殖民先辈远离欧洲旧社会的腐败,征服了荒野,并发展出了自力更生、诚实和自由的价值观,这些价值观如今已成为所有美国人的传承:因此,像丹尼尔·布恩这样的民间英雄才具有经久不衰的魅力。近年来,许多非洲国家面临着这样的问题:它们的边界是19世纪末欧洲列强瓜分非洲大陆人为划定的结果。在少数情况下,例如马里和津巴布韦,人们可以声称它们源自一个更早的同名国家。加纳则采用了一个中世纪贸易帝国的名字,而这个帝国的领土范围根本不包括它现在的领土。在非洲大陆其他地区,政治领导人援引前殖民时代的一些永恒特质(例如朱利叶斯·尼雷尔的“乌贾马”,即兄弟情谊)作为身份认同的基石。如果没有某种此类具有合法性的历史渊源,塑造民族认同或许是不可能的。

The process of tradition-making is particularly clear in newly autonomous nations, where the need for a legitimizing past is strongly felt and the materials for a national past are often in short supply. Within two generations of the War of Independence, Americans had come to identify with a flattering self-image: in taming the wilderness far away from the corruptions of the old society in Europe, their colonial forebears had developed the values of self-reliance, honesty and liberty that were now the heritage of all Americans: hence the enduring appeal of folk heroes such as Daniel Boone. More recently many African countries have faced the problem that their boundaries are the artificial outcome of the European partition of the continent in the late nineteenth century. In a few cases, such as Mali and Zimbabwe, descent can be claimed from a much earlier state of the same name. Ghana adopted the name of a medieval trading empire which did not include its present territory at all. Elsewhere in the continent political leaders have invoked timeless qualities from the precolonial past (like Julius Nyerere’s ujamaa, or brotherhood) as a charter of identity. To forge a national identity without some such legitimizing past is probably impossible.

但诉诸不变的过去并非仅限于新兴国家或受压迫的国家。19世纪的英国拥有相对稳固的民族认同感,然而在当时的历史学家著作中,既能找到不变的民族本质,也能找到随着时间推移而变化的观念。通常被认为是英国第一位职业历史学家的威廉·斯塔布斯认为,英国宪政在中世纪发展壮大的原因“深植于人民的本性之中”;在这种解读下,议会制政府成为民族追求自由天赋的体现。24本质主义的范畴很容易被政治家们挂在嘴边,尤其是在危机时刻。二战期间,温斯顿·丘吉尔援引了可以追溯到小皮特和伊丽莎白一世的顽强抵抗外敌入侵的传统。1982年福克兰群岛战争期间,自由派评论员们不自觉地想起了这种论调。玛格丽特·撒切尔在反思这场冲突的教训时宣称:

But appeals to an unchanging past are not confined to new or repressed nations. Nineteenth-century Britain had a relatively secure sense of nationhood, yet in the work of historians at that time is to be found an unchanging national essence as well as the idea of change over time. William Stubbs, usually regarded as the first professional historian in Britain, believed that the reasons for the growth of the English constitution through the Middle Ages lay ‘deep in the very nature of the people’; in this reading parliamentary government became the expression of a national genius for freedom.24 Essentialist categories come readily to the lips of politicians, particularly at moments of crisis. During the Second World War Winston Churchill invoked a tradition of dogged resistance to foreign attack stretching back to Pitt the Younger and Elizabeth I. Liberal commentators were uncomfortably reminded of this vein of rhetoric at the time of the Falklands War in 1982. Pondering the lessons of the conflict, Margaret Thatcher declared:

这一代人在能力、勇气和决心方面都能与他们的父辈和祖辈比肩。我们从未改变。当战争的需要和我们人民面临的危险召唤我们拿起武器时,我们英国人就和以往一样——能干、勇敢、坚定。25

This generation can match their fathers and grandfathers in ability, in courage, and in resolution. We have not changed. When the demands of war and the dangers to our own people call us to arms – then we British are as we have always been – competent, courageous and resolute.25

这种民族主义建立在对传统的坚持之上,而非对历史的诠释之上。它压制差异和变革,以维护身份认同。

Nationalism of this kind rests on the assertion of tradition, rather than an interpretation of history. It suppresses difference and change in order to uphold identity.

修辞

rhetoric

最初是指古希腊的公开演讲艺术,但如今更常用来指依靠言辞或声音的说服力而不是实际论证的观点。

Originally the ancient Greek art of public speaking, but more usually used nowadays to mean points that rely on the persuasive power of words or voice rather than actual argument.

第四

IV

怀旧——历史即失落

Nostalgia – history as loss

传统主义是对历史意识最粗暴的扭曲,因为它摒弃了历史发展这一核心概念。其他扭曲则更为隐蔽。其中一种影响巨大的便是怀旧。与传统一样,怀旧也是一种回顾过去的方式,但它并非否认历史变迁的事实,而是将其解读为一种单一方向的变化——变迁变得更糟。怀旧最常见的表现形式或许是代际遗憾:老年人常常抱怨现在的年轻人桀骜不驯,或者国家“每况愈下”,而类似的抱怨在很长一段时间内都有记录。 26但怀旧的影响范围也更广。它最强烈地体现在对近期历史中某种失落感的反应上,因此,它尤其体现在经历快速变革的社会中。对进步的期待和乐观从来都不是唯一的——甚至不是主要的——社会反应。对于旧习俗和熟悉地标的消逝,人们几乎总是会感到遗憾或担忧。回望过去,令人心生慰藉,仿佛在精神世界里逃离了残酷的现实。当过去似乎在我们眼前悄然流逝时,我们便试图在想象中重现它。这正是浪漫主义运动的主要动力之一,而历史主义内部也存在着一种有时过于怀旧的倾向,学者们对周遭的工业化和城市化进程感到不满。中世纪紧密的社群和缓慢的变革节奏,恰好在经济变革加速、社会生活规模不断扩大之际兴起,这绝非偶然。自工业革命以来,怀旧一直是经历重大变革的社会的一种情感反射。如今在英国,“遗产”便是怀旧最常见的表达方式之一。当过去被保存或重现以供娱乐时,它通常(尽管并非总是如此)会被以最吸引人的面貌呈现出来。昔日的辉煌,例如中世纪的比武大会或伊丽莎白时代的宴会,自然能带来观赏的乐趣;但日常生活——例如繁重的日常工作——却并非如此。早期工业手工艺作坊或维多利亚时代厨房的陈设,也经过精心装点,以求在视觉上吸引眼球。参观历史遗迹,难免会感到一丝失落。

Traditionalism is the crudest distortion of historical awareness, because it does away with the central notion of development over time. Other distortions are more subtle. One that has huge influence is nostalgia. Like tradition, nostalgia is backward-looking, but instead of denying the fact of historical change, it interprets it in one direction only – as change for the worse. Nostalgia is most familiar perhaps as generational regret: older people habitually complain that nowadays the young are unruly, or that the country is ‘going to the dogs’, and the same complaints have been documented over a very long period.26 But nostalgia works on a broader canvas too. It works most strongly as a reaction to a sense of loss in the recent past, and it is therefore particularly characteristic of societies undergoing rapid change. Anticipation and optimism are never the only – or even the main – social responses to progress. There is nearly always regret or alarm at the passing of old ways and familiar landmarks. A yearning backward glance offers consolation, an escape in the mind from a harsh reality. It is when the past appears to be slipping away before our eyes that we seek to re-create it in the imagination. This was one of the mainsprings of the Romantic movement, and within historicism itself there was a sometimes unduly nostalgic impulse, as scholars reacted against the industrialization and urbanization around them. It is no accident that the Middle Ages, with its close-knit communities and its slow pace of change, came into fashion just as the gathering pace of economic change was enlarging the scale of social life. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, nostalgia has continued to be one of the emotional reflexes of societies experiencing major change. One of its commonest expressions in Britain today is ‘heritage’. When the past is conserved or re-enacted for our entertainment, it is usually (though not invariably) presented in its most attractive light. Bygone splendours, such as the medieval tournament or the Elizabethan banquet, naturally lend themselves to the pleasures of spectacle; but everyday life – such as the back-breaking routines of the early industrial craft shop or the Victorian kitchen – is also dressed up in order to be visually appealing. A sense of loss is part of the experience of visiting heritage sites.

怀旧的问题在于它对历史的看法非常片面。如果将过去重新设计成一个舒适的避风港,那么它所有的负面特征都必须被抹去。过去变得比现在更好、更简单。因此,19世纪的中世纪主义几乎忽略了生命的短暂和贫困,也忽略了邪恶精神世界的力量。当今的怀旧也表现出类似的短视。即使是模拟伦敦大轰炸,也会让人既为“战时精神”的丧失而感到惋惜,也为空袭的后果而感到恐惧。那些鼓吹“家庭价值观”的人,认为过去存在一个黄金时代(根据个人喜好,可能是1939年或1914年之前),却忽略了离婚程序简化之前大量无爱婚姻的存在,以及因配偶或父母自然死亡而导致的家庭破裂的高发率。正如拉斐尔·塞缪尔所说,在这种情况下,过去与其说是历史,不如说是寓言。

The problem with nostalgia is that it is a very lopsided view of history. If the past is redesigned as a comfortable refuge, all its negative features must be removed. The past becomes better and simpler than the present. Thus nineteenth-century medievalism took little account of the brevity and squalor of life or the power of a malign spirit-world. Present-day nostalgia shows a comparable myopia. Even a simulation of the London Blitz will prompt regret at the loss of ‘wartime spirit’ as much as horror at the effects of aerial bombardment. Champions of ‘family values’ who posit a golden age in the past (before 1939 or 1914, according to taste) overlook the large number of loveless marriages before divorce was made easier, and the high incidence of family breakup through the loss of a spouse or parent from natural causes. In such cases, as Raphael Samuel put it, the past functions less as history than as allegory:

它见证了礼仪和道德的衰落,映照出我们的不足,体现了缺失……通过选择性遗忘的过程,过去变成了原始幸福之梦的历史等价物,或是记忆赋予童年的神奇空间。27

It is a testimony to the decline in manners and morals, a mirror to our failings, a measure of absence … By a process of selective amnesia the past becomes a historical equivalent of the dream of primal bliss, or of the enchanted space which memory accords to childhood.27

近视

myopia

短视。

Short-sightedness.

圣保罗大教堂的圆顶在1940年伦敦大轰炸中完好无损的景象,成为了英国反抗纳粹德国以及英国独特历史观的有力象征。尽管近期的学术研究对英国民众在大轰炸中的团结程度提出了质疑,但民众对“大轰炸精神”的普遍“记忆”却丝毫没有减弱的迹象。(Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

The image of the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral standing intact through the devastating London Blitz of 1940 became a powerful symbol both of British defiance of Nazi Germany and of a particular approach to the distinctiveness of British history. More recent scholarship questions the extent to which the British people were united in the Blitz, but the popular social ‘memory’ of the ‘Blitz spirit’ shows no sign of diminishing. (Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

这种观点不仅无法可靠地指引我们了解过去,而且会滋生当下的悲观和僵化。怀旧将过去视为当下的替代品,而非未来的序曲。它诱使我们沉湎于遥不可及的黄金时代,而不是积极地融入现实世界。历史意识本应提升我们对当下的洞察力,而怀旧却助长了我们逃避现实的欲望。

This kind of outlook is not only an unreliable guide to the past but also a basis for pessimism and rigidity in the present. Nostalgia presents the past as an alternative to the present instead of as a prelude to it. It encourages us to hanker after an unattainable golden age instead of engaging creatively with the world as it is. Whereas historical awareness should enhance our insight into the present, nostalgia indulges a desire to escape from it.

V

V

摒弃过去:历史即进步

Dismissing the past: history as progress

历史扭曲的另一端是对进步的信仰。如果说怀旧反映了一种悲观的世界观,那么进步则是一种乐观的信条,因为它不仅断言过去的改变是朝着更好的方向发展,而且认为这种进步将持续到未来。与过程一样,进步也关乎随时间推移而发生的变化,但关键的区别在于,进步赋予了这种变化积极的价值,使其具有道德内涵。进步的概念对现代性至关重要,因为在两百年间,它一直是西方的核心神话,是西方文化自信和在与世界其他地区交往中占据绝对优势的源泉。从这个意义上讲,进步本质上是十八世纪启蒙运动的产物。此前,人们总是假定人类发展存在极限,要么是因为神圣天意的神秘运作,要么是因为古典时代的成就被认为是不可超越的。十八世纪启蒙运动则将希望寄托于人类理性改变世界的力量上。伏尔泰、休谟和亚当·斯密等作家将历史视为物质和道德进步的未完成记录。他们试图通过追溯人类社会从原始野蛮到文明和精致的发展历程来揭示历史的形态。这些历史学家的自信在今天看来或许显得天真和狂妄,但在过去的200年里,某种类似的结构一直是各种进步思想的基石。其中包括自由民主和马克思主义。直到20世纪60年代,这两种传统的代表人物——J ·H·普拉姆和E·H·卡尔——都曾撰写过广为流传的历史宣言,其中饱含着对进步的热情信念。28如今,鉴于环境和经济灾难的严峻预测,这种信念已十分罕见。但我们当中很少有人乐于一直生活在怀旧的遗憾之中;对逝去黄金时代的渴望,往往与对“糟糕旧时光”的自信贬低形成鲜明对比。

At the other end of the scale of historical distortion lies the belief in progress. If nostalgia reflects a pessimistic view of the world, progress is an optimistic creed, for it asserts not only that change in the past has been for the better but that improvement will continue into the future. Like process, progress is about change over time, but with the crucial difference that a positive value is placed on the change, endowing it with moral content. The concept of progress is fundamental to modernity, because for 200 years it was the defining myth of the West, a source of cultural self-assurance and of outright superiority in the West’s dealings with the rest of the world. In this sense progress was essentially the invention of the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. Hitherto a limit on human development had always been assumed, either on account of the mysterious workings of Divine Providence or because the achievements of classical antiquity were regarded as unsurpassable. The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century placed its faith in the power of human reason to transform the world. Writers such as Voltaire, Hume and Adam Smith regarded history as an unfinished record of material and moral improvement. They sought to reveal the shape of history by tracing the growth of human society from primitive barbarism to civilization and refinement. The confidence of these historians may seem naïve and grandiose today, but for 200 years some such structure has underpinned all varieties of progressive thought, including both liberal democracy and Marxism. As recently as the 1960s representatives of these two traditions – J.H. Plumb and E.H. Carr – wrote widely read manifestos for history informed by a passionate belief in progress.28 That kind of faith is much rarer today, in the light of dire predictions of environmental and economic disaster. But few of us are happy to live in a world of nostalgic regret all the time; the yearning for a lost golden age in one sphere is often balanced by the confident disparagement of ‘the bad old days’ in another.

JH Plumb(1911–2001)

J.H. Plumb (1911–2001)

约翰·H·普拉姆爵士是剑桥大学一位杰出的历史学家,专门研究十八世纪英国历史。普拉姆是一位极具影响力的人物,他的许多学生后来都成为了知名的历史学家。

Sir John H. Plumb, a leading Cambridge historian specializing in the history of eighteenth-century Britain. Plumb was an influential figure, many of whose students went on to become high-profile historians.

这种对过去的漠视揭示了以进步为历史观的局限性。“过程”是一个中性词,不带任何隐含的价值判断,而“进步”一词本身就带有评价性和片面性;因为它以现在优于过去为前提,所以它不可避免地会受到当下流行价值观的影响,其结果是,我们越追溯过去,过去就越显得不那么令人钦佩,越显得“原始”。其结果便是居高临下和不理解。如果过去存在的唯一目的就是为了证明现在的成就,那么就没有任何空间去欣赏其丰富的文化内涵。进步的拥护者从来都不擅长理解与他们自身时代相距甚远的时期。例如,伏尔泰就出了名地无法认可中世纪的任何优点;他的历史著作只关注理性与宽容的发展,而对其他方面则予以批判。因此,如果对进步的追求过头,它很快就会与历史学家有义务按照历史自身的视角重构过去这一事实产生冲突。事实上,历史主义的形成很大程度上是对启蒙运动时期许多作家那种以当下视角贬低历史的倾向的一种反动。兰克认为每个时代都“仅次于上帝”,他的意思是说,不应该用现代标准去评判它。将历史解读为一部包罗万象的进步史,正是基于这种理念。

That dismissal of the past points to the limitations of progress as a view of history. Whereas ‘process’ is a neutral term without an implicit value judgment, ‘progress’ is by definition evaluative and partial; since it is premised on the superiority of the present over the past, it inevitably takes on whatever values happen to be prevalent today, with the consequence that the past seems less admirable and more ‘primitive’ the further back in time we go. Condescension and incomprehension are the result. If the past exists strictly to validate the achievements of the present, there can be no room for an appreciation of its cultural riches. Proponents of progress have never been good at understanding periods remote from their own age. Voltaire, for example, was notoriously unable to recognize any good in the Middle Ages; his historical writings traced the growth of rationality and tolerance and condemned the rest. So if the desire to demonstrate progress is pressed too far, it quickly comes into conflict with the historian’s obligation to re-create the past on its own terms. In fact historicism took shape very much as a reaction against the present-minded devaluation of the past that characterized many writers of the Enlightenment. Ranke regarded every age as being ‘next to God’, by which he meant that it should not be prejudged by modern standards. Interpreting history as an overarching story of progress involves doing just that.

传统、怀旧和进步构成了社会记忆的基本要素。它们各自满足了人们内心深处对安全感的渴望——表面上承诺不变,或是带来更好的改变,或是让人逃离到更美好的过去。然而,真正的问题在于,作为一种主导立场,它们要求过去必须符合某种根深蒂固却往往不为人知的需求。它们关乎信仰,而非探究。它们试图寻找一个能够清晰反映过去的窗口,最终却对其他一切漠不关心。

Tradition, nostalgia and progress provide the basic constituents of social memory. Each answers a deep psychological need for security – through seeming to promise no change, or change for the better, or an escape into a more congenial past. The real objection to them is that, as a governing stance, they require the past to conform with a deeply felt and often unacknowledged need. They are about belief, not enquiry. They look for a consistent window on the past, and they end up doing scant justice to anything else.

六年级

VI

挑战传统版本

Challenging the conventional version

如果社会需求如此轻易地导致对过去的扭曲认知,那么历史学家总体上与社会需求保持距离也就不足为奇了。在实践层面,专业历史学家对社会记忆的态度并非总是前后一致。例如,赫伯特·巴特菲尔德(Herbert Butterfield)在20世纪30年代因抨击以当下为中心的史学而声名鹊起,但他在1944年却热情洋溢地回顾了英国历史传统,其目的显然是为了鼓舞战时士气。 29如今,报纸经常刊登一些著名历史学家的文章,他们试图借此机会影响公众对过去的态度。但整个历史学界更倾向于强调学术历史研究的目的和方法与大众历史研究截然不同。大多数大众历史知识的出发点是当下的需求,而历史主义的出发点则是重返或重塑过去的渴望。

If social need so easily leads to distorted images of the past, it is hardly surprising that historians have on the whole kept their distance from it. At a practical level the stance of the professional historian towards social memory is not always consistent. Thus Herbert Butterfield, who made his name in the 1930s with an attack on present-minded history, wrote an impassioned evocation of the English historical tradition in 1944 which was clearly intended to contribute to wartime morale.29 Today the newspapers quite often publish articles by leading historians who are tempted by the opportunity to influence popular attitudes towards the past. But the profession as a whole prefers to emphasize how different the purpose and approach of scholarly historical work are. Whereas the starting point for most popular forms of knowledge about the past is the requirements of the present, the starting point of historicism is the aspiration to re-enter or re-create the past.

赫伯特·巴特菲尔德(1900–79)

Herbert Butterfield (1900–79)

剑桥大学历史学家,专攻十八世纪历史。他对《辉格党历史观》(1931年)的分析抨击了辉格党历史学家以进步视角看待历史的倾向,从而不公正地(且不合时宜地)批评早期时代是“落后的”。

Cambridge historian specializing in the eighteenth century. His analysis of The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) attacked the tendency of ‘Whig’ historians to see history in terms of progress, thereby unjustly (and anachronistically) criticizing earlier ages as ‘backward’.

由此可见,历史学家的一项重要任务是挑战出于社会动机而对历史的错误解读。这项工作被比作“专攻白内障手术的眼科医生”。 30然而,尽管患者乐于矫正视力,社会却可能深陷于对历史的错误认知之中,而历史学家指出这一点并不会让他们受欢迎。他们的许多发现都会招致对神圣信仰的动摇——例如,质疑丘吉尔战时领导效能的历史学家,或者试图以非宗派视角研究北爱尔兰历史的历史学家。世界上可能没有任何一部官方的民族主义历史能够抵御学术探究带来的负面影响。同样,那些支撑左右翼冲突的参与式历史研究也面临着同样的困境。在英国,出于政治动机的劳工史往往强调政治激进主义和反抗资本的斗争;然而,如果劳工史要提供一个现实的历史视角,以便制定政治策略,就不能忽视同样悠久的工人阶级保守主义传统,而这一传统至今仍然非常活跃。彼得·伯克在一次社会主义历史学家会议上说:“虽然我认为自己是社会主义者和历史学家,但我不是社会主义历史学家”,他的意思是,他想研究的是真实的工人阶级保守主义。历史记录的复杂性不容忽视,不应将其简化为“我们”与“他们”之间过度戏剧化的对抗。31同样的论点也适用于右翼的歪曲。20世纪80年代中期,玛格丽特·撒切尔试图利用某种带有自利色彩的19世纪英国形象来捞取政治资本。当她赞扬“维多利亚时代的价值观”时,她的意思是,不受约束的个人主义和国家权力的削弱或许能够再次使英国伟大。她却避而不谈维多利亚时代经济奇迹的必要前提是英国的全球战略主导地位,也没有深入探讨由此造成的骇人听闻的社会代价,例如贫困和环境破坏。历史学家很快指出,她的设想既不切实际,也不可取。32

It follows that one important task of historians is to challenge socially motivated misrepresentations of the past. This activity has been likened to ‘the eye-surgeon, specializing in removing cataracts’.30 But whereas patients are only too glad to have their sight corrected, society may be deeply attached to its faulty vision of the past, and historians do not make themselves popular in pointing this out. Many of their findings incur the odium of undermining hallowed pieties – as in the case of historians who question the efficacy of Churchill’s wartime leadership, or who attempt a nonsectarian approach to the history of Northern Ireland. There is probably no official nationalist history in the world that is proof against the deflating effect of academic enquiry. The same is true of the kind of engaged history that underwrites the conflict between Left and Right. Politically motivated labour history in Britain has tended to emphasize political radicalism and the struggle against capital; yet if it is to provide a realistic historical perspective in which political strategies can be planned, labour history cannot afford to ignore the equally long tradition of working-class Toryism, still very much alive today. When Peter Burke told a conference of socialist historians, ‘although I consider myself a socialist and a historian, I’m not a socialist historian’, he meant that he wanted to study the real complexity of the historical record, not reduce it to an overdramatized confrontation between Us and Them.31 The same argument can be made with regard to distortion emanating from the Right. During the mid-1980s Margaret Thatcher tried to make political capital out of a somewhat self-serving image of nineteenth-century England. When she applauded ‘Victorian values’, she meant that untrammelled individualism and a rolling back of the state might once again make Britain great. She omitted to say that the essential precondition of the Victorian economic miracle had been Britain’s global strategic dominance, and she did not dwell on the appalling social costs in terms of destitution and environmental damage. Historians were quick to point out that her vision was both unrealistic and undesirable.32

非宗派

nonsectarian

避免效忠任何特定的宗教团体。

Avoiding allegiance to any particular religious group.

奔放

untrammelled

畅通无阻。

Unhindered.

国家倒退

rolling back of the state

在20世纪的英国,国家的作用急剧增强,尤其是在克莱门特·艾德礼领导的战后工党政府(1945-1951年)将重工业和医疗服务国有化之后。玛格丽特·撒切尔领导的保守党政府(1979-1990年)则扭转了这一政策,将国有企业重新收归私有。

The role of the state grew enormously in twentieth-century Britain, especially after Clement Attlee’s postwar Labour government (1945–51) nationalized heavy industry and the health service. The Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher (1979–90) reversed this policy by returning nationalized industry to private ownership.

历史与社会记忆的重叠

The overlap between history and social memory

如果这种辟谣活动似乎将历史学家置于与社会记忆守护者截然相反的阵营,那么必须强调的是,这种区别远没有我之前描述的那样泾渭分明。一种观点(尤其与后现代主义相关)认为,历史与社会记忆实际上并无区别。根据这种观点,重现过去的愿望是一种幻觉,所有历史写作都带有当下不可磨灭的印记——实际上,它更多地反映了当下而非过去。我将在第七章评估这种激进颠覆性立场的优劣。在此只需指出,将历史简化为社会记忆的观点虽然迎合了特定类型的怀疑论理论家,却鲜少得到历史学家的支持。然而,两者之间也存在着显著的重叠领域。认为研究的准确性是专业历史学家的专属特权是错误的。正如拉斐尔·塞缪尔所指出的,这个国家有一大批热情洋溢的业余爱好者,他们研究的领域包罗万象,从家族谱系到蒸汽机车,无所不包,他们对准确性的追求无人能及。33学院派历史学家或许会与社会记忆的扭曲保持距离,但如今许多成熟的历史专业都源于明确的政治需求:例如劳工史、妇女史和非洲史。历史与社会记忆并非总是能够完全区分,因为历史学家也承担着社会记忆的部分工作。或许最重要的是,社会记忆本身就是历史研究的重要课题。它对各种形式的民众意识都至关重要,从民主政治到社会习俗和文化品味,任何全面的社会史都不能忽视它;口述历史在某种程度上正是试图将这一维度纳入考量(见下文第11章)。在所有这些方面,历史和社会记忆都相互滋养。正如杰弗里·库比特所说,“历史和记忆是密切相关的概念:它们占据着相似的心理领域”。 34

If this debunking activity would seem to put historians in the opposite camp from the keepers of social memory, it needs to be stressed that the distinction is by no means as hard and fast as I have depicted it up to this point. One strand of opinion (particularly associated with Postmodernism) holds that there is in fact no difference between history and social memory. According to this view, the aspiration to re-create the past is an illusion, and all historical writing bears the indelible impression of the present – indeed tells us more about the present than the past. I will evaluate the merits of this radically subversive position in Chapter 7. Here it is enough to point out that the collapsing of history into social memory appeals to a particular kind of sceptical theorist but commands very little support from historians. However, there are significant areas of overlap. It would be wrong to suppose that accuracy of research is the exclusive property of professional historians. As Raphael Samuel pointed out, there is an army of enthusiastic amateurs in this country, investigating everything from family genealogy to steam locomotives, whose fetish for accuracy is unsurpassed.33 Academic historians may distance themselves from the distortions of social memory, but many well-established historical specialisms today have their origin in an explicit political need: one thinks of labour history, women’s history and African history. It is not always possible to distinguish completely between history and social memory, because historians perform some of the tasks of social memory. Perhaps most important of all, social memory itself is an important topic of historical enquiry. It is central to popular consciousness in all its forms, from democratic politics to social mores and cultural taste, and no comprehensive social history can afford to ignore it; oral history represents in part an attempt to take account of this dimension (see below, Chapter 11). In all these ways history and social memory feed on each other. As Geoffrey Cubitt puts it, ‘History and memory are proximate concepts: they inhabit a similar mental territory’.34

尽管存在诸多共通之处,历史学家喜欢区分自身研究与社会记忆的做法仍然至关重要。无论社会记忆服务于极权政权还是民主社会中的利益集团,其价值和生存前景都完全取决于其功能效力:记忆的内容会随着语境和优先事项的变化而变化。当然,历史研究也无法摆脱实用价值的考量。部分原因是,我们比兰克更清楚地认识到,历史学家无法完全脱离其所处的时代。部分原因还在于,正如我将在下一章论述的那样,回应时事议题能够积极地丰富历史的内涵。大多数历史学家与社会记忆守护者之间的分歧通常在于,他们坚持认为历史研究应遵循本章所述的历史主义原则——即历史意识应凌驾于社会需求之上。这一原则本身就具有可辩护性。但如果我们想要从历史中汲取教训,而不是仅仅在历史中找到我们自身眼前利益的镜像,那么这一原则就必须得到坚持。现在我转向这种可能性。

Yet for all these points of convergence, the distinction that historians like to make between their work and social memory remains important. Whether social memory services a totalitarian regime or the needs of interest groups within a democratic society, its value and its prospects of survival are entirely dependent on its functional effectiveness: the content of the memory will change according to context and priorities. Of course historical scholarship is not immune from calculations of practical utility. Partly this is because we understand more clearly than Ranke did that historians cannot detach themselves completely from their own time. Partly also, as I will argue in the next chapter, the richness of history is positively enhanced by responding to topical agendas. Where most historians will usually part company from the keepers of social memory is in insisting that their findings should be guided by the historicist principles described in this chapter – that historical awareness should prevail over social need. This is a principle that can be defended on its own merits. But it must also be sustained if we are to have any prospect of learning from history, as distinct from finding there the mirror-image of our own immediate concerns. To that possibility I now turn.

大众历史的神话

Myths of popular history

1940年5月,德军入侵法国,英国远征军被迫撤退到敦刻尔克港,并在猛烈炮火下撤离。许多英国人误以为这次行动取得了成功,“敦刻尔克精神”也由此成为面对绝对劣势时乐观积极、坚韧不拔的象征。

When the Germans invaded France in May 1940 the British Expeditionary Force was forced to retreat to the port of Dunkerque (Dunkirk), from where it had to be evacuated under heavy fire. Many in Britain mistakenly perceived the operation as a success, and the ‘Dunkirk spirit’ came to denote cheery optimism and resolution in the face of overwhelming odds.

1282年复活节星期二,巴勒莫人民起义反抗法国人,在人们做晚祷时大开杀戒,尽可能多地屠杀了他们。这就是所谓的“西西里晚祷”。它象征着民众起义的巨大潜在力量,这种起义能够出其不意地发动袭击,推翻外国占领军,因此其影响远远超出了其直接的历史背景。黑手党也起源于中世纪的西西里岛,当时它是众多游离于法律之外、运作着类似封建制度的秘密兄弟会之一。黑手党“头目”统治着各自的街区,他们往往既仁慈又残酷地维护着自己的权威。19世纪末,随着意大利大规模移民美国,部分黑手党成员也随之涌入,并开始从事保护费勒索和有组织犯罪活动。意大利裔美国黑手党因在禁酒令时期(1919-1933年)参与非法酒精供应而声名鹊起,并在此过程中成为美国神话的一部分。

On Easter Tuesday 1282 the people of Palermo rose up against the French, massacring as many as they could find while they were at vespers (evening prayer). The ‘Sicilian Vespers’ became a symbol of the immense potential power of a popular uprising to strike without warning and to oust a foreign occupying force, and therefore had resonance far beyond its immediate historical context. The Mafia also has its origins in medieval Sicily, where it was one of a number of clandestine brotherhoods operating a pseudo-feudal system outside the law. Mafia ‘barons’ ruled their neighbourhoods, often combining benevolence with ruthless enforcement of their authority. Elements of the Mafia were caught up in large-scale Italian emigration to the United States in the late nineteenth century, where they moved into protection rackets and organized crime. The Italian–American Mafia rose to public prominence through its involvement in supplying illegal alcohol during the years of Prohibition (1919–33), becoming part of American mythology in the process.

1776年,包括约翰·亚当斯、托马斯·杰斐逊和本杰明·富兰克林在内的北美十三块英国殖民地的代表齐聚费城,签署了《独立宣言》,宣布脱离英国统治,建立美利坚合众国。如今,他们在美国被尊称为“开国元勋”,备受推崇,并被赋予了浪漫色彩。然而,对开国元勋进行严肃的历史批判性评价,在美国仍然十分罕见——事实上,这几乎被视为不爱国的行为。

In 1776 representatives of the thirteen British colonies in North America, including John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, met in Philadelphia and signed the Declaration of Independence, renouncing British rule and founding the United States. Nowadays they are popularly revered and romanticized in America as the ‘Founding Fathers’. It remains rare – indeed, it is considered almost unpatriotic – for Americans to subject the Founding Fathers to serious critical historical evaluation.

马尔科姆·X(1925-1965)是 20 世纪 60 年代美国激进黑人民权运动的领军人物,他呼吁对美国历史的神话以及非洲人在美国历史中所扮演的角色进行重大反思。

Malcolm X (1925–65), a leading figure in the radical black civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s, called for a major reappraisal of the mythology of American history and of the role Africans played in it.

历史时期

Periods of history

人们很容易忘记,历史时期是后人构建的概念;当时没有人知道自己生活在“古代世界”或“中世纪”。这些术语也反映了创造它们的人的价值观和判断。“中世纪”一词是由十五、十六世纪文艺复兴时期的学者创造的,用来指代他们眼中介于古代“黄金时代”和他们所处时代之间的一段漫长的无知和迷信时期。历史时期通常以世纪或十年为单位来定义——例如“十八世纪”、“六十年代”——或者以统治者为单位,例如“都铎王朝时期的英格兰”或“维多利亚时代”,但这种定义方式并不尽如人意:“维多利亚时代”的思想观念可以追溯到第一次世界大战;第一位都铎王朝君主亨利七世的统治与他的约克王朝前任君主并没有显著区别;而且最显著的特征是……与六十年代青年文化密切相关的音乐,更准确的年代可以追溯到大约1965 年至1975年。历史学家经常故意忽略传统的时期划分:弗兰克·奥戈尔曼 (Frank O'Gorman) 曾将十八世纪称为“漫长的十八世纪”,从 1688 年的“光荣革命”到 1832 年的改革法案;而埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆 (Eric Hobsbawm) 则将二十世纪称为“短暂的二十世纪”,从第一次世界大战开始,到 1989-1991 年欧洲共产主义的崩溃结束。

It is easy to forget that historical periods are later constructs; no one at the time knew they were living in ‘the ancient world’ or ‘the Middle Ages’. These terms also reflect the values and judgements of those who coined them. The term ‘Middle Ages’ was coined by scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth-century Renaissance to refer to what they saw as a long period of ignorance and superstition which interposed between the ‘golden age’ of the ancients and their own day. Periods are often defined in terms of centuries or decades – ‘the eighteenth century’, ‘the Sixties’ – or else in terms of rulers, as in ‘Tudor England’ or ‘the Victorians’, though this can be unsatisfactory: ‘Victorian’ attitudes can be traced up to the First World War; the reign of the first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, was not significantly different from that of his Yorkist predecessors; and the features most commonly associated with the youth culture of the Sixties can be more accurately dated from c.1965 to c.1975. Historians often deliberately ignore conventional periodization: Frank O’Gorman has written of the ‘long eighteenth century’, from the ‘Glorious’ Revolution of 1688 to the Reform Act of 1832, while Eric Hobsbawm has written of a ‘short twentieth century’, beginning with the First World War and ending with the fall of European communism in 1989–91.

启蒙运动与浪漫主义

Enlightenment and the Romantics

十八世纪的启蒙运动源于上个世纪的科学革命,后者强调通过观察和演绎进行学习的重要性,而非盲目接受过去的权威。孟德斯鸠和卢梭等启蒙思想家将这些思想应用于人类社会,认为人类的“自然”状态是自由,人类的行为应受理性而非非理性的、“反自然”的传统或宗教信仰的支配。启蒙哲学对法国大革命的领导人产生了重要影响。

The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century grew out of the scientific revolution of the previous century, which had stressed the importance of learning through observation and deduction rather than by the unquestioning acceptance of past authority. Enlightenment thinkers such as Montesquieu and Rousseau applied these ideas to human society, teaching that humans’ ‘natural’ condition is to be free, and that human behaviour should be governed by reason rather than by irrational and ‘unnatural’ tradition or religious faith. Enlightenment philosophy was an important influence on the leaders of the French Revolution.

浪漫主义是十九世纪初的一场文化和思想运动,深受法国大革命思想的影响。它力求使情感自由表达,从而探寻永恒真理。浪漫主义者从中世纪的浪漫故事和传说中汲取灵感,例如亚瑟王的故事。

Romanticism was a cultural and intellectual movement in the early nineteenth century, heavily influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution. It sought to give free range to the emotions, and thereby to attain eternal truths. The Romantics found inspiration in the romances and tales of the Middle Ages, for example the tales of King Arthur.

民族主义同样起源于法国大革命,它强调集体民族认同感的重要性。民族主义很大程度上关注于保护和珍视“传统”的民族语言和文化,但它也与民族国家的概念紧密相连,在民族国家中,国家是按照民族和种族划分的。

Nationalism, also originating in the French Revolution, emphasized the importance of a sense of collective national identity. Much of nationalism is concerned with preserving and cherishing ‘traditional’ national language and culture, but it is also closely identified with the idea of the nation-state, in which states are organized along national ethnic lines.

延伸阅读

Further reading

Michael Bentley《现代史学》,Routledge出版社,1999年。

Michael Bentley, Modern Historiography, Routledge, 1999.

贝弗利·索斯盖特《历史:是什么以及为什么?》,第2版,劳特利奇出版社,2004年。

Beverley Southgate, History: What and Why?, 2nd edn, Routledge, 2004.

JH Plumb《过去的消亡》,麦克米伦出版社,1969 年。

J.H. Plumb, The Death of the Past, Macmillan, 1969.

George G. IggersJames Powell(编),《利奥波德·兰克与历史学科的形成》,雪城大学出版社,1990 年。

George G. Iggers & James Powell (eds), Leopold Ranke and the Shaping of the Historical Discipline, Syracuse University Press, 1990.

Geoffey Cubitt《历史与记忆》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,2007 年。

Geoffey Cubitt, History and Memory, Manchester University Press, 2007.

Stefan Berger(编),《国家历史写作》,Routledge出版社,1998年。

Stefan Berger (ed.), Writing National Histories, Routledge, 1998.

David Lowenthal《过去是一个异国》,剑桥大学出版社,1985 年。

David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge University Press, 1985.

David Lowenthal《遗产十字军与历史精神》,Viking出版社,1997年。

David Lowenthal, The Heritage Crusade and the Spirit of History, Viking, 1997.

拉斐尔·塞缪尔《记忆剧场》,第一卷:当代文化中的过去与现在,Verso出版社,1994年。

Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory, vol. I: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture, Verso, 1994.

Sam Wineberg《历史思维和其他非自然行为:规划教授过去的未来》,坦普尔大学出版社,2001 年。

Sam Wineberg, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past, Temple University Press, 2001.

笔记

Notes

  1   Rictor Norton,《克拉普妈妈的莫莉之家:1700-1830 年英国的同性恋亚文化》,男同性恋出版社,1992 年。

  1  Rictor Norton, Mother Clap’s Molly House: the Gay Subculture in England, 1700–1830, Gay Men’s Press, 1992.

  2   Jan Vansina,《口述传统作为历史》,James Currey,1985 年。

  2  Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, James Currey, 1985.

  3   James Fentress 和 Chris Wickham,《社会记忆》,Blackwell 出版社,1992 年,第 5 章

  3  James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory, Blackwell, 1992, ch. 5.

  4  马尔科姆·X,《非裔美国人历史》,第3版,探路者出版社,1990年,第12页。

  4  Malcolm X, On Afro-American History, 3rd edn, Pathfinder, 1990, p. 12.

  5  历史工作坊杂志 I,1976 年,第 2 页(社论)。

  5  History Workshop Journal, I, 1976, p. 2 (editorial).

  6   Sheila Rowbotham,《历史的隐秘之处》,冥王星出版社,1973 年。

  6  Sheila Rowbotham, Hidden from History, Pluto Press, 1973.

  7   Sheila R. Johansson,“‘女性史’作为历史:一个新领域还是另一种时尚?”,载于 Berenice A. Carroll(编),《解放女性史》,伊利诺伊大学出版社,1976 年,第 427 页。

  7  Sheila R. Johansson, ‘“Herstory” as history: a new field or another fad?’, in Berenice A. Carroll (ed.), Liberating Women’s History, Illinois University Press, 1976, p. 427.

  8   L. von Ranke,《拉丁和德意志民族史(1494 年至 1514 年)》,摘录译自 GP Gooch,《十九世纪的历史和历史学家》,第二版,朗文出版​​社,1952 年,第 74 页。

  8  L. von Ranke, Histories of the Latin and German Nations from 1494 to 1514, extract translated in G.P. Gooch, History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century, 2nd edn, Longman, 1952, p. 74.

  9  可惜,这是最常被引用的译本所传达的印象,“实际发生的事情”:参见 F​​ritz Stern(编),《历史的各种形式》,第 2 版,麦克米伦出版社,1970 年,第 57 页。

  9  Unfortunately this is the impression conveyed by the most frequently cited translation, ‘what actually happened’: see Fritz Stern (ed.), The Varieties of History, 2nd edn, Macmillan, 1970, p. 57.

10   Thomas Carlyle,引自 JR Hale(编),《英国史学的发展》,麦克米伦出版社,1967 年,第 42 页。

10  Thomas Carlyle, quoted in J.R. Hale (ed.), The Evolution of British Historiography, Macmillan, 1967, p. 42.

11   EP Thompson,《共同的习俗》,企鹅出版社,1993 年,第 7 章

11  E.P. Thompson, Customs in Common, Penguin, 1993, ch. 7.

12   VAC Gatrell,《绞刑树:处决与英国人民,1770–1868》,牛津大学出版社,1994 年。

12  V.A.C. Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770–1868, Oxford University Press, 1994.

13  引自 Gareth Stedman Jones,《伦敦弃儿》,企鹅出版社,1976 年,第 258 页。

13  Quoted in Gareth Stedman Jones, Outcast London, Penguin, 1976, p. 258.

14   LP Hartley,《中间人》,企鹅出版社,1958 年,第 7 页。

14  L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between, Penguin, 1958, p. 7.

15   Simon Schama,《Clio at the Multiplex》,《纽约客》 ,1998 年 1 月 19 日,第 40 页。

15  Simon Schama, ‘Clio at the Multiplex’, The New Yorker, 19 January 1998, p. 40.

16   Ludmilla Jordanova,“标记时间”,载于 Holger Hoock(编),《历史、纪念和民族关注》,牛津大学出版社,2007 年,第 7 页。

16  Ludmilla Jordanova, ‘Marking time’, in Holger Hoock (ed.), History, Commemoration and National Preoccupation, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 7.

17   Penelope J. Corfield,《时间和历史的形状》,耶鲁大学出版社,2007 年,第 131-149 页。

17  Penelope J. Corfield, Time and the Shape of History, Yale University Press, 2007, pp. 131–49.

18  例如,参见 James Sharpe,《黑暗的工具:1550-1750 年英国的巫术》,Hamish Hamilton 出版社,1996 年;Jonathan Barry、Marianne Helster 和 Gareth Roberts(编),《近代早期欧洲的巫术》,剑桥大学出版社,1996 年。

18  See, for example, James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England, 1550–1750, Hamish Hamilton, 1996; Jonathan Barry, Marianne Helster and Gareth Roberts (eds), Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1996.

19  例如,参见约翰·吉利斯,《无论好坏:英国婚姻,1600 年至今》,牛津大学出版社,1985 年。

19  See, for example, John Gillis, For Better, For Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present, Oxford University Press, 1985.

20  费尔南·布罗代尔,《历史与社会科学:长时段》,载于其著作《论历史》,魏登菲尔德和尼科尔森出版社,1980 年,第 25-52 页。

20  Fernand Braudel, ‘History and the social sciences: la longue durée’, in his On History, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980, pp. 25–52.

21   EJ Hobsbawm 和 TO Ranger(编),《传统的发明》,剑桥大学出版社,1982 年。

21  E.J. Hobsbawm and T.O. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 1982.

22 Richard G. Plaschka,“弗朗蒂谢克·帕拉茨基  的政治意义《当代史杂志》第 VIII 卷,1973 年,第 35-55 页。

22  Richard G. Plaschka, ‘The political significance of František Palacký’, Journal of Contemporary History, VIII, 1973, pp. 35–55.

23   Noel Malcolm,《科索沃简史》,麦克米伦出版社,1998 年。

23  Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History, Macmillan, 1998.

24   William Stubbs,引自 Christopher Parker,《 1850 年以来的英国历史传统》,Donald,1990 年,第 42-43 页。

24  William Stubbs, quoted in Christopher Parker, The English Historical Tradition since 1850, Donald, 1990, pp. 42–3.

25  玛格丽特·撒切尔,1982 年 7 月 3 日在切尔滕纳姆的演讲,转载于 Anthony Barnett 的《铁娘子》一书,Allison & Busby 出版社,1982 年。

25  Margaret Thatcher, speech in Cheltenham, 3 July 1982, reprinted in Anthony Barnett, Iron Britannia, Allison & Busby, 1982.

26   Geoffrey Pearson,《流氓:体面恐惧的历史》,麦克米伦出版社,1983 年。

26  Geoffrey Pearson, Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears, Macmillan, 1983.

27  拉斐尔·塞缪尔,《记忆剧场》,第二卷:岛屿故事:解开英国的谜团,Verso出版社,1998年,第337-338页。

27  Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory, vol. II: Island Stories: Unravelling Britain, Verso, 1998, pp. 337–8.

28   JH Plumb,《过去的消亡》,麦克米伦出版社,1969 年;EH Carr,《什么是历史?》,麦克米伦出版社,1961 年。

28  J.H. Plumb, The Death of the Past, Macmillan, 1969; E.H. Carr, What Is History? Macmillan, 1961.

29   H. Butterfield,《英国人及其历史》,剑桥大学出版社,1944 年。

29  H. Butterfield, The Englishman and His History, Cambridge University Press, 1944.

30  西奥多·泽尔丁(Theodore Zeldin),“布罗代尔之后”,《倾听者》,1981 年 11 月 5 日,第 14 页。 542.

30  Theodore Zeldin, ‘After Braudel’, The Listener, 5 November 1981, p. 542.

31   Peter Burke,《人民的历史还是总体的历史》,载于 Raphael Samuel(编),《人民的历史与社会主义理论》,Routledge & Kegan Paul 出版社,1981 年,第 8 页。

31  Peter Burke, ‘People’s history or total history’, in Raphael Samuel (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, p. 8.

32   Eric M. Sigsworth(编),《探寻维多利亚时代的价值观》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,1988 年;TC Smout(编),《维多利亚时代的价值观》 ,英国科学院,1992 年。

32  Eric M. Sigsworth (ed.), In Search of Victorian Values, Manchester University Press, 1988; T.C. Smout (ed.), Victorian Values, British Academy, 1992.

33  拉斐尔·塞缪尔,《非官方知识》,载于其《记忆剧场》第一卷:当代文化中的过去与现在,Verso出版社,1994年,第3-39页。

33  Raphael Samuel, ‘Unofficial knowledge’, in his Theatres of Memory, vol. I: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture, Verso, 1994, pp. 3–39.

34   Geoffrey Cubitt,《历史与记忆》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,2007 年,第 4 页。

34  Geoffrey Cubitt, History and Memory, Manchester University Press, 2007, p. 4.

第二章

Chapter Two

历史的用途

The uses of history

本章探讨了历史学家们试图阐释其工作目的的几种不同方式。一些人认为历史本身就是一门学科,无需更广泛的论证;另一些人则将其视为人类乃至神力在时间长河中不可阻挡的演进,以此解释我们是如何走到今天以及未来可能走向何方;还有一些人则否认历史对我们有任何借鉴意义。历史学家们通过对过去的解读来回应当下的关切和疑问。历史的确能够让我们体验到原本不会遇到的境况和面对不同的选择,从这个意义上讲,它确实发挥着有益的作用;它还能揭示现代生活的某些方面并非如我们所认为的那样古老或新颖。但是,当历史的诸多细节都依赖于具体的历史背景时,我们如何才能从历史中汲取任何有用的经验教训——尤其是对未来而言?如果历史不会重演,它又能为当下提供怎样的指引呢?

This chapter looks at some of the different ways in which historians have tried to explain the purpose of their work. Some see history as a study in itself which needs no wider justification; others see it in terms of the inexorable march across time of great forces, human or even divine, which explain both how we got to where we are and where we might be heading; others deny that history has any lessons for us at all. Historians explain the past in response to present-day concerns and questions. History can certainly allow us to experience situations and face alternatives that we would not otherwise encounter, and in that sense it serves a useful purpose; it can also reveal that aspects of modern life are not as old, or as new, as we have assumed. But how can we learn any useful lessons from history – especially for the future – when so much depends on the details of the historical context? And if history does not repeat itself, what sort of a guide can it provide for the present?

N本书探讨的问题之一,其答案之丰富,甚至超过了“我们能从历史中学到什么?”这个问题本身。答案五花八门,从亨利·福特那句著名的格言“历史都是胡扯”到认为历史蕴藏着人类命运的关键,不一而足。历史学家们自身也给出了截然不同的答案,这表明这是一个开放式的问题,无法被简化为一个简洁的答案。然而,任何打算花费数年时间——甚至在某些情况下耗费一生——研究这一课题的人,都必须思考其研究的意义所在。如果不首先思考历史探究的理论基础,就很难理解历史学家是如何开展研究的,也很难评估研究成果。

None of the issues discussed in this book has drawn a greater variety of answers than the question ‘What can we learn from history?’ The answers have ranged from Henry Ford’s celebrated aphorism ‘history is bunk’ to the belief that history holds the clue to human destiny. The fact that historians themselves give very different responses suggests that this is an open-ended question which cannot be reduced to a tidy solution. But anyone proposing to spend several years – and in some cases a lifetime – studying the subject must reflect on what purpose it serves. And one cannot get very far in understanding how historians set about their work, or in evaluating its outcome, without first considering the rationale of historical enquiry.

I

元历史——将历史视为长期发展过程

Metahistory – history as long-term development

一种极端观点认为,历史告诉我们关于未来的大部分信息。我们的命运揭示在人类历史的宏大轨迹中,它既展现了当今世界的真实面貌,也预示着未来的发展方向。这种信念需要对人类发展历程进行高度模式化的解读,通常被称为元历史。在17世纪之前,一种精神层面的元历史在西方文化中占据主导地位。中世纪思想家认为,历史代表着神圣天意的不可阻挡的展开,从创世到基督的救赎,直至最后的审判;对过去的沉思揭示了上帝的旨意,并使人们专注于即将到来的审判。随着18世纪以来欧洲文化的逐渐世俗化,这种观点变得站不住脚。新的元历史形式发展起来,将历史的前进动力归因于人类而非神的行为。启蒙运动关于道德进步的信念就属于此类。但近代最具影响力的元历史理论是马克思主义。历史的驱动力变成了人类社会为满足其物质需求而进行的斗争(这就是马克思主义理论被称为“历史唯物主义”的原因)。马克思将人类历史解释为生产形式从低级向高级的演进;当时的最高形式是工业资本主义,但它注定要让位于社会主义,届时人类的需求将得到充分和公平的满足(参见第八章)。自国际共产主义崩溃以来,对历史唯物主义的信仰急剧下降但元历史思想仍然具有吸引力:某些自由市场理论家颠覆了马克思主义,他们认为20世纪90年代标志着自由民主的全球胜利,或者说是“历史的终结”。

At one extreme lies the proposition that history tells us most of what we need to know about the future. Our destiny is disclosed in the grand trajectory of human history, which reveals the world today as it really is, and the future course of events. This belief requires a highly schematic interpretation of the course of human development, usually known as metahistory. A spiritual version of it predominated in Western culture until the seventeenth century. Medieval thinkers believed that history represented the inexorable unfolding of Divine Providence, from the Creation through the redeeming life of Christ to the Last Judgement; the contemplation of the past revealed something of God’s purposes and concentrated the mind on the reckoning to come. This view became less tenable with the gradual secularization of European culture from the eighteenth century onwards. New forms of metahistory developed which attributed the forward dynamic of history to human rather than divine action. The Enlightenment belief in moral progress was of this kind. But the most influential metahistory of modern times has been Marxism. The driving force of history became the struggle by human societies to meet their material needs (which is why the Marxist theory is known as ‘historical materialism’). Marx interpreted human history as a progression from lower to higher forms of production; the highest form was currently industrial capitalism, but this was destined to give way to socialism, at which point human needs would be satisfied abundantly and equitably (see Chapter 8). Since the fall of international communism, belief in historical materialism has sharply declined, but metahistorical thinking continues to hold an appeal: Marxism has been turned on its head by certain free-market theorists, for whom the 1990s signal the global triumph of liberal democracy, or ‘the end of history’.1

弹道

trajectory

物体飞行轨迹的轨迹。它可以像这里一样,用来描述人们感知到的、在很长一段时间内所追踪的主题的“路径”。

The line of an object in flight. It can be applied, as here, to a perceived ‘path’ of a theme traced over a long period of time.

神圣天意

Divine Providence

仁慈的上帝庇佑和保护世人的理念。

The idea of a benevolent God who watches over and protects people on earth.

末日审判

Last Judgement

在基督教,尤其是天主教神学中,末日审判是指世界末日,所有人类来到上帝面前,接受对其生前行为的审判,有些人将被允许进入天堂,而另一些人则被判处永世堕入地狱。这是中世纪艺术中常见的题材,并在米开朗基罗为梵蒂冈西斯廷教堂创作的壁画中得到了生动的展现。

In Christian, especially Catholic, theology the Last Judgement is the moment at the end of time when all humans come before God for judgement on their lives on earth, some being allowed to enter heaven, others being condemned for eternity to hell. It was a common theme in medieval art and is dramatically presented in Michelangelo’s frescos in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

启蒙运动对道德进步的信念

Enlightenment belief in moral progress

十八世纪启蒙运动认为,运用人类理性能够使人们摆脱有组织的宗教和迷信在精神和政治上的压迫。理性追求更大的人类自由和幸福,因此被等同于道德进步。

The eighteenth-century Enlightenment believed that the exercise of human reason would liberate people from the mental and political oppression of organized religion and superstition. By aiming for greater human liberty and happiness, reason was thereby equated with moral progress.

对历史的否定

The rejection of history

另一个极端观点认为,历史毫无价值:并非历史遥不可及,而是它无法提供任何指导。这种对历史的否定有两种形式。第一种本质上是对极权主义的防御。对于冷战时期的许多知识分子来说,援引历史的实际后果是……过去对合法共产主义意识形态而言是如此可怕,以至于任何认为历史可能为现在提供线索的想法都彻底失去了可信度;一些历史学家对任何模式或意义的想法都极度反感,以至于他们拒绝在历史中寻找任何超越偶然、错误和巧合的东西

At the other extreme is the view that nothing can be learned from history: not that history is beyond our reach, but that it offers no guidance. This rejection of history takes two forms. The first is essentially a defence against totalitarianism. For many intellectuals during the Cold War, the practical consequences of invoking the past to legitimate communist ideology had been so appalling that any idea that history might hold clues for the present became completely discredited; some historians recoiled so far from any idea of pattern or meaning that they refused to find in history anything more than accident, blunder and contingency.2

极权主义

totalitarianism

独裁统治,尤其与 20 世纪 20 年代和 30 年代的欧洲政权有关,强调国家无所不包的作用。

Dictatorship, associated particularly with European regimes of the 1920s and 1930s, which stressed the all-encompassing role of the state.

第二个拒绝历史的理由是对现代性的追求:既然致力于创新,又何必在意过去?这种观点由来已久。将现代性等同于拒绝过去,最早在1789年至1793年的法国大革命期间得以实践。革命者处决了国王,废除了贵族制度,抨击宗教,并宣布1792年9月22日为元年。所有这一切都以理性之名进行,不受任何先例或传统的约束。二十世纪初是现代主义拒绝历史的又一个高峰。在先锋派思想中,人类的创造力被视为与过去的成就相对立,而非源于过去;对历史的无知解放了想象力。在两次世界大战期间,这些思想在“现代主义”的旗帜下成为艺术界的主导思潮。法西斯主义和纳粹主义则将这种语言运用到了政治领域。面对第一次世界大战的灾难和世界经济令人担忧的不稳定,他们宣称与过去彻底决裂是值得的。他们猛烈抨击旧社会的腐败,并要求有意识地创造“新人”和“新秩序”。如今,彻底的极权主义已彻底丧失信誉。但“现代主义”仍然具有一定的吸引力。它认可了以技术官僚方式处理政治和社会事务的做法,并支撑着人们对艺术领域新事物的迷恋。

The second basis for rejecting history is a commitment to modernity: if one is committed to the new, why bother with the past? This point of view has a much longer pedigree. The equation of modernity with a rejection of the past was first put into effect during the French Revolution of 1789–93. The revolutionaries executed the king, abolished the aristocracy, attacked religion and declared 22 September 1792 the beginning of Year 1. All this was done in the name of reason, untrammelled by precedent or tradition. The early twentieth century was another high point in the modernist rejection of history. In avant-garde thinking human creativity was seen as opposed to the achievements of the past, rather than growing out of them; ignorance of history liberated the imagination. During the inter-war period these ideas became the dominant strand in the arts, under the banner of ‘modernism’. Fascism and Nazism adapted this language to the political sphere. They reacted to the catastrophe of the First World War and the alarming instability of the world economy by claiming the virtue of a complete break with the past. They lambasted the corruption of the old society and demanded the conscious creation of a ‘new man’ and a ‘new order’.3 Today, root-and-branch totalitarianism is completely discredited. But ‘modernism’ retains some of its allure. It validates a technocratic approach to politics and society and underwrites the fascination with the new in the arts.

现代主义者

modernists

在此背景下,有些人只关注当下,而忽略过去。

In this context, those whose concerns are concentrated on the modern day to the exclusion of any consideration of the past.

前卫

avant-garde

(法语)指冲锋陷阵、引领军队进入战斗的前线部队。该词最初用于指代二十世纪初的激进和先锋艺术运动,后来演变为指代任何新颖或激进的思想。

(French) The troops at the front who spearhead an army’s advance into battle. The term was applied to radical and pioneering artistic movements in the early twentieth century and has since come to denote any new or radical ideas.

世界经济令人担忧的不稳定性

alarming instability of the world economy

1929 年 10 月纽约证券交易所崩盘后,20 世纪 30 年代的国际经济衰退。

The international economic slump of the 1930s that followed on from the New York Stock Exchange crash of October 1929.

根与枝

root-and-branch

彻底的。这个词源于十七世纪的一个宗教团体,他们希望对英国国教进行全面改革。

Thorough-going. The term derives from a seventeenth-century religious group who wanted a comprehensive reform of the Church of England.

无论是元历史还是彻底否定历史,都难以获得历史研究者的广泛支持。元历史或许能让历史学家扮演令人欣喜的先知角色,但代价却是否认或大幅削弱人类在历史进程中的能动性。马克思主义在过去五十年中对历史写作产生了巨大影响,但它更多地是作为一种社会经济变革理论,而非人类命运的关键。归根结底,自由意志与决定论之间的选择是一个哲学问题,存在着许多中间立场。如果大多数历史学家倾向于自由意志,那是因为决定论与历史记录中大量存在的偶然性和模糊性格格不入。元历史则意味着为了坚持一个核心信念而牺牲许多其他观点。这种见解不够深刻。这种观点与历史研究的经验截然相反。

Neither metahistory nor the total rejection of history commands much support among practitioners of history. Metahistory may cast the historian in the gratifying role of prophet, but at the cost of denying, or drastically curtailing, the play of human agency in history. Marxism has had great influence on the writing of history over the past fifty years, but as a theory of socio-economic change rather than as the key to human destiny. Ultimately the choice between free will and determinism is a philosophical one. There are many intermediate positions. If most historians would tip the balance in favour of free will, this is because determinism sits uncomfortably with the contingencies and rough edges that loom so large in the historical record. Metahistory involves holding on to one big conviction at the expense of many less ambitious insights. It is an outlook profoundly at odds with the experience of historical research.

历史学家们并不乐见自己的研究成果被斥为毫无意义。否定历史显然会将历史研究局限于一种自娱自乐的古物探索。事实上,两百年来,对历史意识的诉求一直与现代主义对历史的否定形成持续的辩证关系。历史主义本身在很大程度上是对法国大革命的一种反动。对于兰克这样的保守派人士而言,法国的政治暴行是激进分子背弃历史的可怕例证;不尊重既有制度而盲目套用基本原则,是对社会秩序根基的威胁。随着革命偏离正轨,许多激进分子也开始对历史产生新的敬畏。那些仍然信仰自由和民主的人逐渐意识到,人类并非像革命者所认为的那样摆脱了历史的束缚,进步的变革必须建立在前人积累的成就之上。

Historians are no happier to have their findings dismissed as a complete irrelevance. The rejection of history would obviously limit its study to a self-indulgent antiquarian pursuit. In fact the claims for historical awareness have for 200 years been asserted in a continuing dialectic with the modernist rejection of history. Historicism itself was to a considerable extent a reaction against the French Revolution. To conservatives such as Ranke, the political excesses in France were a terrifying instance of what happens when radicals turn their backs on the past; to apply first principles without respect for inherited institutions was a threat to the very fabric of the social order. As the Revolution went off course, many of the radicals acquired a new respect for history too. Those who still believed in freedom and democracy came to realize that humans were not so free from the hand of the past as the revolutionaries had supposed, and that progressive change must be built on the cumulative achievements of earlier generations.

古玩

antiquarian

对历史细节和文物感兴趣,却不考虑其更广泛的背景或意义。

Interest in historical details and artefacts without reference to their wider context or significance.

辩证法

dialectic

一种观点(正题)与另一种与其完全相反的观点(反题)之间的冲突,最终将二者融合,即为合题。

The conflict of one idea (the thesis) and another diametrically opposed to it (the antithesis). The resulting amalgamation of the two is known as the synthesis.

只有远见卓识者才会接受元历史的全部内涵;只有古物研究者才会甘愿放弃一切实用价值。历史学最能提供相关洞见的论断,介于这两个极端之间。而这一切都取决于我们是否认真对待十九世纪历史学奠基者们所确立的历史意识原则。历史学家们如今已成为不带任何实际应用色彩的客观历史探究的代名词,但这并非他们立场的准确描述。他们并非完全否定历史的实用价值,而只是坚持认为,忠实地再现过去必须放在首位。事实上,差异、语境和过程这三个原则(前一章已讨论过)指出了历史学学术研究能够产生有用知识的具体途径。最终的结果并非万能钥匙或总体框架,而是与历史意识相符的一系列具体实用洞见的积累。

Only a visionary would accept the full implications of metahistory; only an antiquarian would be content to surrender all claim to practical utility. The most convincing claims of history to offer relevant insights lie somewhere between these two extremes. And they hinge on taking seriously the principles of historical awareness established by the nineteenth-century founders of the discipline. The historicists have become a by-word for disinterested historical enquiry without practical application, but this is not an accurate picture of their position. They did not disclaim all claims to practical relevance but merely insisted that the faithful representation of the past must come first. In fact the three principles of difference, context and process (discussed in the previous chapter) point to the specific ways in which the scholarly study of history can yield useful knowledge. The end result is not a master-key or an overall schema but rather an accumulation of specific practical insights consistent with a sense of historical awareness.

II

历史的用途——替代方案清单

The uses of history – an inventory of alternatives

历史差异是历史学科声称其具有社会相关性的核心所在。作为一座记录陌生或异己事物的记忆库,历史构成了我们最重要的文化资源。它提供了一种途径——尽管并不完美,却不可或缺——让我们得以进入那些在我们自身生活中根本无法体验的经历。我们对人类所能达到的高度和可能堕落的深渊的感知,对人类在危机中展现出的应变能力,以及对彼此需求的敏锐体贴——所有这些都源于对过去不同背景下人们的思想和行为的了解。艺术史学家早已熟知这样一种观点:过去的创造性成就是一笔宝贵的财富,其价值可被后世所发掘——西方艺术不断地重塑和摒弃古希腊罗马古典传统便是最好的例证。但创造力也可以从许多其他领域汲取。历史提醒我们,对于困境或情境,通常不止一种解读方式,而我们所拥有的选择往往比我们想象的要丰富得多。西奥多·泽尔丁写了一本包罗万象的书,名为《人类的亲密史》(1994),涵盖了孤独、烹饪、对话和旅行等诸多主题。他的目的并非揭示某种模式,更非预测或规定未来,而是让我们看到过往经验为我们提供的多种选择。大多数历史学家或许会对泽尔丁这种缺乏地域性和时间性连贯性的碎片化论述抱有严重的疑虑。但他的理由并非独树一帜。早期现代欧洲文化史权威娜塔莉·泽蒙·戴维斯曾说过:“我让(过去)说话,并表明事物不必像现在这样……我想表明,过去可以不同,过去也确实不同,而且还有其他选择。” 随着历史变迁的进程,旧有的论点或纲领可能会再次变得适用。这在英国革命史权威克里斯托弗·希尔的著作中一直是一个反复出现的主题:

Historical difference lies at the heart of the discipline’s claim to be socially relevant. As a memory-bank of what is unfamiliar or alien, history constitutes our most important cultural resource. It offers a means – imperfect but indispensable – of entering into the kind of experience that is simply not possible in our own lives. Our sense of the heights to which human beings can attain, and the depths to which they may sink, the resourcefulness they may show in a crisis, the sensitivity they can show in responding to each other’s needs – all these are nourished by knowing what has been thought and done in the very different contexts of the past. Art historians have long been familiar with the idea that the creative achievements of the past are an inventory of assets whose value may be realized by later generations – witness the way that Western art has repeatedly reinvented and rejected the classical tradition of Greece and Rome. But creative energy can be drawn from the past in many other fields. History reminds us that there is usually more than one way of interpreting a predicament or responding to a situation, and that the choices open to us are often more varied than we might have supposed. Theodore Zeldin has written a magpie’s feast of a book, called An Intimate History of Humanity (1994), ranging over such subjects as loneliness, cooking, conversation and travel. His aim is not to lay bare a pattern, still less to predict or prescribe, but to open our eyes to the range of options that past experience places at our disposal. Most historians probably have serious misgivings about a fragmented exposition such as Zeldin’s, which lacks any topographical or chronological coherence. But his rationale is not unusual. Natalie Zemon Davis – a leading cultural historian of early modern Europe – has said, ‘I let [the past] speak and I show that things don’t have to be the way they are now … I want to show that it could be different, that it was different, and that there are alternatives’.4 As the process of historical change unfolds, old arguments or programmes may once more become relevant. This has been a persistent theme in the work of the foremost historian of the English Revolution, Christopher Hill:

由于资本主义、新教伦理牛顿物理学——这些长期以来被我们文明视为理所当然的事物——如今终于开始受到挑战。鉴于普遍存在的批评,值得重新认真审视那些在这些观点获得普遍接受之前反对它们的人的论点。5

Since capitalism, the Protestant ethic, Newtonian physics, so long taken for granted by our civilization, are now at last coming under general and widespread criticism, it is worth going back to consider seriously and afresh the arguments of those who opposed them before they had won universal acceptance.5

关键不在于寻找先例,而在于对各种可能性保持警觉。历史是各种可能性的汇编,如果我们在研究历史时不局限于当下的处境,那么历史的内涵将会更加丰富。

The point is not to find a precedent but to be alert to possibilities. History is an inventory of alternatives, all the richer if research is not conducted with half an eye to our immediate situation in the present.

古典传统

classical tradition

“古典”指的是古希腊和古罗马的世界。他们的思想和哲学经常在后世复兴,尤其是在十五、十六世纪的文艺复兴时期以及十八世纪。

‘Classical’ refers to the ancient world of Greece and Rome. Their ideas and philosophy were often revived by later ages, notably during the fifteenth and sixteenth-century Renaissance and again in the eighteenth century.

新教伦理

Protestant ethic

也称为新教伦理。马克斯·韦伯在《新教伦理与资本主义精神》(1905 年)中首次对此进行了详细分析,他认为,新教神学强调个人与上帝的关系(与天主教强调教会的集体共同体相对),因此特别适合发展一种独立自主的工作方式。

Also known as the Protestant work ethic. First analysed in detail by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), this held that Protestant theology, with its stress upon an individual relationship with God (as opposed to the Catholic stress on the collective community of the Church), was uniquely well suited to the development of an independent, self-reliant approach to work.

牛顿物理学

Newtonian physics

艾萨克·牛顿爵士(1642–1727)发展了对自然界运行规律的理解。牛顿的理论直到阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦(1879–1955)的著作出现才受到挑战。

The understanding of the operation of the natural world developed by Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727). Newton’s theories were unchallenged until the writings of Albert Einstein (1879–1955).

从熟悉的事物中汲取教训

Lessons from the familiar

当然,并非所有过去都充满异域风情。实际上,我们对过去某个特定时刻的反应往往是既陌生又熟悉的混合。除了那些面目全非的特征之外,我们可能还会遇到一些我们能够立即理解的思维或行为模式。这两种感觉的并置是历史视角的重要组成部分,也往往是那些更具思考的专业学者最直接地探讨社会相关性的切入点。彼得·拉斯莱特关于英国家庭史的开创性著作就是一个引人注目的例证。自20世纪60年代以来——从《我们失去的世界》(1965)开始——他撰写了一系列关于早期现代英国社会本质的著作。他强调了两个总体结论。首先,我们津津乐道地认为存在于前现代世界的大家庭,其实只是我们怀旧想象的产物:我们的祖先生活在核心家庭中,很少超过两代人。其次,当时的养老模式并没有比今天更注重家庭,但问题的规模却截然不同——事实上,当时人们根本不把老年视为问题,因为很少有人在结束劳动生涯后还能活很久。当我们意识到核心家庭并非工业化的产物,而是根植于更早的英国实践时,我们对核心家庭的看法就会发生改变。另一方面,如果养老政策仍然沿用过去的模式,那将毫无进展。拉斯莱特写道:“我们的处境仍然是全新的,它需要的是创新而非模仿。” 他并没有追溯家庭形式的演变——十八、十九世纪完全被忽略了。他的观点是,理解的第一步是进行历史的比较,这能让我们更清楚地认识到,我们当下的处境中哪些是暂时的,哪些是永恒的。

Of course not all the past is exotic. In practice our reaction to a particular moment in the past is likely to be a mixture of estrangement and familiarity. Alongside features that have changed out of all recognition, we may encounter patterns of thinking or behaviour that are immediately accessible to us. The juxtaposition of these two is an important aspect of historical perspective, and it is often the point at which the more thoughtful professional scholar engages most directly with the claims of social relevance. Peter Laslett’s path-breaking work on the history of the English family offers a striking instance. Since the 1960s – beginning with The World We Have Lost (1965) – he has written a succession of books about the nature of early modern English society. He emphasizes two general conclusions. First, the residential extended family, which we fondly believe existed in the pre-modern world, is a figment of our nostalgic imagination: our forebears lived in nuclear households seldom spanning more than two generations. Second, the care of the elderly was not notably more family-based than it is today, but the scale of the problem was vastly different – indeed old age was not regarded as a problem at all because few people survived for very long after their productive life was over. Our view of the nuclear family is changed when we recognize that it was not a response to industrialization but was rooted in much earlier English practice. On the other hand, policy towards the old will get nowhere if it is guided by past models: ‘Our situation remains irreducibly novel’, writes Laslett; ‘it calls for invention rather than imitation’.6 He does not trace the evolution of family forms over time – the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are missed out entirely. His point is rather that the first step to understanding is comparison across time, which throws into relief what is transient and what is enduring about our present circumstances.

区分持久性和短暂性的能力对于任何现实的社会行动方案都至关重要。例如,我们可以考虑老年人历史的另一个方面——国家提供的养老金。历史视角通常局限于二战后福利国家的建立,或许会回顾一下劳合·乔治在1908年引入老年养老金制度。但这些背景并不能解释为什么养老金水平一直低于维持生计的水平。正如帕特·塞恩所解释的那样,相关的历史是19世纪的济贫法管理,它对地方纳税人负责,并且只关注于为每一类申领者分配最低限度的救济金。7 在这里,历史并非被用来挖掘“意义”以验证特定价值观,而是被用作一种工具,以最大限度地掌控我们当下的处境。自由并非享有完全的行动自由——那是一种乌托邦式的梦想——而是要了解自己的行动和思想在多大程度上受到过去遗产的制约。这听起来像是保守主义的处方。但它实际上为激进举措提供了一个现实的基础。我们需要知道何时是在推开敞开的大门,何时是在撞上一堵砖墙。理解一位历史学家所说的“区分必要之事和仅仅是我们自身偶然安排的产物”,会带来重要的实践益处。8

The ability to distinguish between the enduring and the transient is vital to any realistic programme of social action in the present. Consider, for example, another aspect of the history of old people – state provision in the form of a pension. Historical perspective is usually limited to the establishment of the Welfare State after the Second World War, with perhaps a backward glance to the introduction of old age pensions by Lloyd George in 1908. But these antecedents do not explain why the level of the pension has consistently been fixed at below subsistence level. Here, as Pat Thane explains, the relevant past is the nineteenth-century Poor Law administration, accountable to local rate-payers, and concerned to allocate the barest minimum to every category of claimant.7 History here is not being quarried for ‘meaning’ to validate particular values but is treated as an instrument for maximizing our control over our present situation. To be free is not to enjoy total freedom of action – that is a Utopian dream – but to know how far one’s action and thought are conditioned by the heritage of the past. This may sound like a prescription for conservatism. But what it offers is a realistic foundation for radical initiatives. We need to know when we are pushing against an open door and when we are beating our heads against a brick wall. Grasping what one historian has called ‘the distinction between what is necessary and what is the product merely of our own contingent arrangements’ offers important practical dividends.8

直面痛苦:历史疗法

Facing up to pain: history as therapy

历史差异的概念还有另一个相当令人惊讶的用途——它可以帮助我们理解那些我们可能更愿意遗忘的近代历史。过去一个世纪以来,人类行为的极端程度令人难以置信,以至于我们现在需要付出极大的想象力才能理解第三帝国或斯大林统治下的苏联(以及更近期的例子,如伊迪·阿明统治下的乌干达和波尔布特统治下的柬埔寨)所发生的事情。在这些案例中,现在与过去之间的鸿沟仿佛被压缩在一个人的一生之中。那些经历过大规模死亡、监禁和强制迁徙的人们遭受着集体创伤。最省力的做法或许是让过去保持沉默,而在苏联,“遗忘”正是官方的立场。从斯大林去世到共产主义崩溃的大部分时期,人们并未忘记,但他们的痛苦却无法被分担或公开纪念。一个无法正视自身历史的民族,未来必将举步维艰。这种认识是米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫在20世纪80年代末推行的“公开性”(glasnost )政策的核心。他意识到,只要历史被埋藏,其带来的心理负担就会造成多么沉重的打击。在最初的犹豫之后,他向历史学家开放了档案,并允许苏联人民公开承认斯大林时代的惨痛苦难。无论俄罗斯未来发生什么,这种对历史的集体认知都无法抹去。詹姆斯·乔尔从治疗的角度看待这种对近代历史的痛苦反思:

The concept of historical difference has one other rather surprising application – as a means of grappling with aspects of the very recent past that we might prefer to forget. It is a measure of the almost incredible extremes of human behaviour over the past century that a real effort of the imagination is now needed to understand what happened under the Third Reich or in the Soviet Union under Stalin (more recent instances include Idi Amin’s Uganda and Pol Pot’s Cambodia). In cases such as these the gulf between present and past is, as it were, compressed into a single life-span. Those who lived through these experiences of mass death, incarceration and forced removal suffer from a collective trauma. The line of least resistance may be to leave the past alone, and in the Soviet Union ‘forgetting’ was the official line for most of the period between the death of Stalin and the collapse of communism. Individuals did not forget, but there was no way in which their pain could be shared or publicly marked. A nation that cannot face up to its past will be gravely handicapped in the future. This understanding was central to the policy of glasnost (‘openness’) proclaimed by Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s. He realized how crippling the psychological burden of the past was as long as it remained buried. After some initial hesitation, he opened up the archives to historians and allowed the Soviet people to acknowledge publicly the terrible sufferings of the Stalin era. Whatever else happens in Russia in the future, that collective owning of the past cannot be undone. James Joll saw this kind of painful engagement with the recent past in therapeutic terms:

正如精神分析师通过向我们展示如何面对自身动机和个人过往的真相来帮助我们面对世界一样,当代历史学家也通过使我们能够理解那些塑造了我们世界和社会现状的力量(无论这些力量多么令人震惊),来帮助我们面对现在和未来。9

Just as the psycho-analyst helps us to face the world by showing us how to face the truth about our own motives and our own personal past, so the contemporary historian helps us to face the present and the future by enabling us to understand the forces, however shocking, which have made our world and our society what it is.9

历史差异为我们理解当下提供了一个不可或缺的视角,无论是作为经验的总结,作为我们所处时代短暂性的证据,还是作为对我们近期历史中那些极其陌生的因素的提醒。

Historical difference provides an indispensable perspective on the present, whether as an inventory of experience, as evidence of the transience of our own time, or as a reminder of the deeply alien elements in our recent past.

伊迪·阿明(1925–2003)

Idi Amin (1925–2003)

阿明将军于1971年发动军事政变夺取乌干达政权。他残暴专制,屠杀了大量本国人民。他驱逐了乌干达境内所有亚洲人口,最终于1979年被邻国坦桑尼亚的军事入侵推翻。

General Amin seized power in Uganda in 1971 in a military coup. He proved a brutal dictator and massacred large numbers of his own people. He expelled Uganda’s entire Asian population and was finally overthrown by a military invasion by neighbouring Tanzania in 1979.

波尔布特(1925–1998)

Pol Pot (1925–1998)

1975年至1979年柬埔寨共产党领导人。他实行恐怖统治,强迫所有城市居民迁往农村,约两百万人遭到屠杀。他最终被邻国越南入侵推翻。

Communist leader of Cambodia 1975–9. He instituted a reign of terror in which the entire urban population was forced into the countryside and some two million people were massacred. He was overthrown by an invasion from neighbouring Vietnam.

米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫(1931年—)

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–)

戈尔巴乔夫是1985年至1991年的苏联领导人。他推行了“公开性”(glasnost)政策,公开讨论苏联体制的弊端,并对苏联社会进行根本性的改革(perestroika)。这加速了苏联的解体,戈尔巴乔夫在1991年未遂政变后辞职。

Soviet leader 1985–91. Gorbachev instituted the policy of glasnost (openness) in discussing the failures of the Soviet system, and of fundamental reconstruction (perestroika) of Soviet society. This precipitated the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Gorbachev resigned in the aftermath of an attempted coup in 1991.

III

在特定背景下理解行为

Understanding behaviour in its context

历史背景的实际应用虽然不太容易成为新闻头条,但其重要性却丝毫不减。正如第一章所述,背景学科源于历史学家的信念:对整体的理解必须始终贯穿于我们对各个部分的理解之中。即使历史学家撰写的是经济史或思想史等专门领域的研究,他们也应当遵循这一原则,否则将面临严厉的批评。同样的原则也适用于社会人类学的实践,其田野调查不仅关注特定的仪式或信仰,也关注整个社会结构或文化体系。历史学和人类学都面临着一个共同的问题:如何解读那些可能建立在我们自身认知截然不同的前提之上的行为?例如,如果认为商业交易……十三世纪的英格兰——或者二十世纪的波利尼西亚——完全受我们今天所定义的经济理性所指导;将这些社会视为一个整体来考察,将有助于我们理解贸易和交换是如何受到宗教、社会道德和社会等级制度(仅列举最有可能的几个方面)的影响的。当然,这种思维模式之所以在今天仍然适用,并非因为我们自身的社会是陌生的或“不同的”。相反,当今的问题在于社会令人费解的复杂性,这导致我们过分依赖专业知识,而忽略了更广阔的图景。E·J·霍布斯鲍姆痛斥现代政策制定和规划受制于“科学主义和技术操纵模式”。 10这不仅仅是源于艺术与科学之间界限之争的偏见(霍布斯鲍姆本人一直尊重科学和技术)。这里提出的论点是,用技术方法解决社会和政治问题,将人类经验分割成标有“经济学”、“社会政策”等等的盒子,每个盒子都有自己的技术知识,而真正需要的是一种开放的态度,即人类经验不断突破这些类别。

The practical applications of historical context are much less likely to make the headlines, but they are no less important. As explained in Chapter 1, the discipline of context springs from the historian’s conviction that a sense of the whole must always inform our understanding of the parts. Even when historians write about specialized topics in economic or intellectual history, they should respect this principle, and they open themselves to major criticism if they fail to do so. The same principle informs the practice of social anthropology, where fieldwork is concerned as much with the entire social structure or cultural system as with particular rituals or beliefs. The problem both history and anthropology face is how to interpret behaviour that may be founded on quite different premises from our own. It would, for example, be a great mistake to suppose that commercial transactions in thirteenth-century England – or twentieth-century Polynesia – were guided solely by what we define as economic rationality; looking at these societies as wholes will give us a grasp of how trade and exchange were informed by religion, social morality and social hierarchy (to specify only the most likely dimensions). The reason why this mode of thinking has contemporary application is not, of course, that our own society is alien or ‘different’. Rather, the problem today is the baffling complexity of society, which leads us to place exaggerated faith in specialist expertise, without proper regard to the wider picture. E.J. Hobsbawm deplores how modern policy-making and planning are in thrall to ‘a model of scientism and technical manipulation’.10 This is more than prejudice born of a demarcation dispute between arts and sciences (Hobsbawm himself has always been respectful of science and technology). The argument here is that the technical approach to social and political problems compartmentalizes human experience into boxes marked ‘economics’, ‘social policy’ and so on, each with its own technical lore, whereas what is really required is an openness to the way in which human experience constantly breaks out of these categories.

社会人类学

social anthropology

运用参与观察法分析小规模社会的学科。

Academic discipline that analyses small-scale societies by the techniques of participant observation.

事后诸葛亮的视角更容易辨别社会不同层面之间的横向联系。在我们这个时代,由于缺乏客观性和后见之明,显然更难发现这些联系。但至少,历史训练应该有助于我们以更开阔的视角看待当前的问题。 1991年的海湾战争就说明了这一点——尽管其影响令人遗憾地是负面的。过去四十年来,西方帝国主义的历史一直是许多高度深入分析的对象。历史学家并不认为欧洲的扩张仅仅是航海才能和技术优势的体现。他们将其与经济结构、消费模式和国际关系联系起来——而且越来越多地与男性气质准则和种族差异的建构联系起来。媒体在报道海湾冲突升级时,很少运用这种背景分析。对大多数评论员来说,这场冲突几乎完全局限于国际法和石油政治的框架之内。历史学家可以理直气壮地称自己是横向思维的专家,这支撑了他们培养毕业生从事管理和公务员工作的传统,因为在这些领域,超越特定技术视角进行思考的能力至关重要。类似的情况可以将其与参与公民的教育联系起来,因为公民在处理大多数公共问题时,不可避免地会以非专业人士的身份参与。11

The lateral links between different aspects of society are much easier to discern with the benefit of hindsight. In our own time it is clearly harder to spot the connections, given our lack of detachment and our lack of hindsight. But at the very least a historical training should encourage a less blinkered approach to current problems. The Gulf War in 1991 illustrates this point – if in a regrettably negative way. The history of Western imperialism has been the subject of some highly sophisticated analysis over the past forty years. Historians do not see the process of European expansion merely as an expression of maritime flair and technical superiority. They link it to economic structures, patterns of consumption and international relations – and increasingly to codes of masculinity and constructions of racial difference as well. All too little of this kind of contextualization was applied by the media to the escalation of conflict in the Gulf. For most commentators it was hardly seen outside the frame of international law and the politics of oil. Historians can claim with some justice to be specialists in lateral thinking, and this has underpinned their traditional claim to train graduates for management and the civil service, where the ability to think beyond the boundaries of particular technical perspectives is at a premium. A similar case can be made in relation to the education of the participating citizen, who inevitably approaches most public issues as a nonspecialist.11

海湾战争

Gulf War

1990年,伊拉克总统萨达姆·侯赛因入侵并吞并了石油资源丰富的科威特王国。联合国谴责了这次入侵,次年,以美国为首的国际联军发动反入侵,迫使伊拉克军队撤出科威特。

In 1990 President Saddam Hussain of Iraq invaded and annexed the small oil-rich kingdom of Kuwait. The invasion was condemned by the United Nations, and the Iraqis were forced out of Kuwait the following year by a counter-invasion by a broad international coalition led by the United States.

历史会重演吗?

Does history repeat itself?

历史学家也援引语境原则来反驳“历史会重演”这一普遍但错误的观点。正如人们在日常个人经历中一样,人类也努力从集体生活中的错误和成功中吸取教训。据说,历史传记在英国政治家的休闲阅读中占据重要地位。事实上,一些政治家就撰写过此类杰出作品——例如温斯顿·丘吉尔罗伊·詹金斯。 12 政治家们对后世评判自身地位的历史背景抱有浓厚的兴趣,这只是部分原因。他们研读历史的真正原因是,政治家们希望从中找到指导自身行为的准则——并非道德典范,而是公共事务中的实践经验。这种历史观由来已久。在文艺复兴时期,这种观点尤为突出,当时古典时代的记录被视为道德典范和治国之道实践经验的宝库。马基雅维利为他的故乡佛罗伦萨提出的方案以及他在《君主论》(1513年)中提出的著名政治格言,都以罗马的先例为基础。他因此受到了同时代的后辈历史学家弗朗切斯科·圭恰尔迪尼的有力批评:

Context is also the principle that historians invoke against the common, but mistaken, belief that history repeats itself. Human beings strive to learn from their mistakes and successes in their collective life just as they do in everyday individual experience. Historical biography is said to feature prominently in the leisure reading of British politicians. Indeed a few of them have written distinguished works of this kind – Winston Churchill and Roy Jenkins, for example.12 That politicians have a lively interest in the historical context in which posterity will judge their own standing is only part of the explanation. The real reason for their study of history is that politicians expect to find a guide to their conduct – in the form not of moral example but of practical lessons in public affairs. This approach to history has a long pedigree. It was particularly pronounced during the Renaissance, when the record of classical antiquity was treated as a storehouse of moral example and practical lessons in statecraft. Machiavelli’s prescriptions for his native Florence and his famous political maxims in The Prince (1513) were both based on Roman precedent. He was justly rebuked by his younger contemporary, the historian Francesco Guicciardini:

处处引用罗马人是错误的。任何比较要想有效,都必须找到一个条件与罗马相似的城市,并按照罗马的模式进行治理。如果一个城市的情况与罗马截然不同,那么这种比较就如同指望驴子像马一样奔跑一样荒谬。13

How wrong it is to cite the Romans at every turn. For any comparison to be valid, it would be necessary to have a city with conditions like theirs, and then to govern it according to their example. In the case of a city with different qualities, the comparison is as much out of order as it would be to expect a jackass to race like a horse.13

圭恰尔迪尼一针见血地指出了援引先例的主要弊端,即它通常对历史背景缺乏重视。先例要有效,必须满足相同的条件,但随着时间的推移,看似老生常谈的问题或熟悉的机遇,由于相关情况已然改变,需要进行不同的分析。我们与以往所有时代之间的巨大鸿沟,使得援引遥远过去的先例成为徒劳之举。

Guicciardini put his finger on the principal objection to the citing of precedent, that it usually shows scant regard for historical context. For the precedent to be valid, the same conditions would have to prevail, but the result of the passage of time is that what looks like an old problem or a familiar opportunity requires a different analysis because the attendant circumstances have changed. The gulf that separates us from all previous ages renders the citing of precedents from the distant past a fruitless enterprise.

温斯顿·丘吉尔(1874–1965)

Winston Churchill (1874–1965)

除了撰写关于两次世界大战的多卷本历史著作外,丘吉尔还为他的著名祖先马尔伯勒公爵约翰·丘吉尔撰写了一部详细的传记。

As well as his multivolume histories of the two World Wars, Churchill also wrote a detailed biography of his famous ancestor, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough.

罗伊·詹金斯(1920–2003)

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003)

他曾在工党首相威尔逊和卡拉汉执政期间担任内政大臣和财政大臣,担任过欧盟委员会主席,也是昙花一现的社会民主党(SDP)的创始人之一。此外,他还抽出时间撰写了广受好评的格莱斯顿和丘吉尔的传记。

Served as Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer under the Labour Prime Ministers Wilson and Callaghan, as President of the European Commission, and was one of the founders of the short-lived Social Democratic Party (SDP). He also found time to write critically acclaimed biographies of Gladstone and Churchill.

马基雅维利(1469–1527)

Machiavelli (1469–1527)

尼科洛·马基雅维利,佛罗伦萨政治家和哲学家。1493年,佛罗伦萨推翻了美第奇王朝的统治,宣布成立共和国。马基雅维利曾效力于新政权,但美第奇王朝复辟后,他遭到逮捕和酷刑折磨。马基雅维利最著名的著作是《君主论》,该书建议最成功的统治者应该懂得如何欺骗和伪装。这使他背负了不公正的恶名,被认为是无原则暴政的鼓吹者。

Niccolò Machiavelli, Florentine statesman and philosopher. When Florence overthrew the ruling Medici dynasty and declared itself a republic in 1493 Machiavelli served the new regime, but he was arrested and tortured when the Medici returned. Machiavelli is best known for his book of advice for rulers, The Prince, which suggests that the most successful rulers should know how to deceive and dissemble. It earned him a quite unjust reputation as a promoter of unprincipled tyranny.

只有在研究近代史时,历史学家才认真尝试运用历史类比,理由是:在短时间内,许多背景因素可能基本保持不变,而已经发生的变化也相对有据可查。冷战后期,这种“应用史”研究一度盛行。 14但即便如此,这项任务依然艰巨。以军备竞赛为例。人们普遍认为,二战前十年是军事软弱和绥靖侵略性强权的危险性的一个典型教训。但人们同样可以援引第一次世界大战的先例,而第一次世界大战的起因之一正是自19世纪90年代以来军备竞赛的持续升级。那么,哪个先例才有效呢?答案必然是:就目前而言,两者都无效。即使在一百年的时间跨度内,历史也不会重演。没有任何一种历史情境能够,也永远不可能在所有细节上完全重现。如果某个事件或趋势再次出现,就像军备竞赛一样,那一定是由于一系列独特的因素共同作用的结果,而我们所采取的战略必须首先考虑这些因素。15历史主义关于过去“他者性”的关键概念并非因为我们与研究对象仅相隔两三代人就被搁置。正如霍布斯鲍姆所提醒我们的,他所处的20世纪30年代的氛围与今天截然不同,这使得将最初的纳粹分子与其今天的模仿者进行比较变得毫无意义。16与此同时,历史类比(通常是半自觉地)是人类推理中一种习惯性的、不可避免的部分,尤其容易受到公众人物的影响。只要我们不寻求过去与现在的完美契合,也不将先例作为终结对当前选择进行批判性辩论的依据,那么这种类比就未必是徒劳的。

Only in the case of the recent past have historians seriously attempted to draw on historical analogies, on the grounds that much of the context may remain essentially the same over a short period and that the changes which have occurred are comparatively well documented. During the later stages of the Cold War there was something of a vogue for ‘applied’ history of this kind.14 But even here the task is a daunting one. Consider the case of the arms race. The decade before the Second World War is commonly regarded as an object lesson in the dangers of military weakness and of appeasing an aggressive power. But one could equally cite the precedent of the First World War, one of whose causes was the relentless escalation in armaments from the 1890s onwards. Which precedent is valid? The answer must be: neither as it stands. Even within the time-span of a hundred years, history does not repeat itself. No one historical situation has been, or ever can be, repeated in every particular. If an event or tendency recurs, as the arms race has done, it is as a result of a unique combination of circumstances, and the strategies we adopt must have regard primarily to those circumstances.15 The key historicist notion of the ‘otherness’ of the past is not suspended merely because we stand at only two or three generations’ distance from our object of study. As Hobsbawm has reminded us, the atmosphere of the 1930s (through which he lived) was utterly different from today’s, which makes any comparison between the original Nazis and their imitators today pretty pointless.16 At the same time, the drawing of historical analogies, often half consciously, is a habitual and unavoidable part of human reasoning to which people in public life are especially prone. It is not necessarily futile, provided we do not look for a perfect fit between past and present, or treat precedent as grounds for closing critical debate about the options available now.

历史不会重演这一事实也限制了历史学家预测未来的信心。无论某个因素的再次出现似乎多么有可能导致似曾相识的结果,历史变迁的持续过程意味着未来总会受到我们无法预测的其他因素的影响,而这些因素对当前问题的影响也是任何人都无法预料的。此外,当人们认为自身处境“历史重演”时,他们的行为会受到对先前事件了解的影响。正如E.H.卡尔所指出的,历史先例让我们得以窥见哪些条件会引发革命,但革命在具体情况下是否以及何时爆发,则取决于其他因素。关于“无法预测的独特事件的发生”。17 然而,那些见多识广、聪明睿智的人做出错误预测,或者未能预测事后看来显而易见的事情的糟糕记录,确实揭示了历史的一个教训:控制未来是一种错觉,而与不确定性共存是人类生存状态的一部分。

The truth that history never repeats itself also limits the confidence with which historians can predict. However probable it may seem that a recurrence of this or that factor will result in a familiar outcome, the constant process of historical change means that the future will always be partly shaped by additional factors that we cannot predict and whose bearing on the problem in hand no one could have suspected. Moreover, when people do perceive their situation as ‘history repeating itself’, their actions will be affected by their knowledge of what happened the first time. As E.H. Carr pointed out, historical precedent gives us some insight into what kind of conditions make for a revolution, but whether and when the revolution breaks out in a specific instance will depend on ‘the occurrence of unique events, which cannot themselves be predicted’.17 The dismal record of well-informed intelligent people who have made false predictions, or have failed to predict what with hindsight seems obvious, does however suggest one lesson of history: that control of the future is an illusion, and that living with uncertainty is part of the human condition.

第四

IV

未来之路:历史与序贯预测

The way ahead: history and sequential prediction

过程——历史主义的第三个原则——同样能帮助我们洞察当下。识别一个过程并不意味着我们认同它,或者认为它创造了一个更美好的世界。但它或许有助于我们解释我们所处的世界。将自身置于一个仍在展开的轨迹之中,能让我们更好地把握未来,并进行一定程度的前瞻性规划。事实上,这种历史思维模式深深植根于我们的政治文化之中。作为选民和公民,我们几乎是本能地用历史进程的视角来解读我们周围的世界。我们的假设并非基于历史现实,它们可能只不过是往前投射的一厢情愿。但如果对历史进程的结论建立在严谨的研究之上,就能得出虽不充分但却有用的预测。我们可以称这些预测为“序列预测”,以区别于已被证伪的“重复性”“循环性”预测。这些关于历史进程的普遍观点需要被置于聚光灯下,用历史记录进行检验,并在必要时被更准确的视角所取代。

Process – the third principle of historicism – is equally productive of insights into the present day. Identifying a process does not mean that we agree with it, or believe that it made for a better world. But it may help to explain our world. Situating ourselves in a trajectory that is still unfolding gives us some purchase on the future and allows a measure of forward planning. In fact this mode of historical thinking is deeply rooted in our political culture. As voters and citizens, almost instinctively, we interpret the world around us in terms of historical process. Much of the time our assumptions are not grounded in historical reality; they may amount to little more than wishful thinking projected backwards. But if conclusions about historical process are based on careful research, they can yield modest but useful predictions. We might call these sequential predictions, in order to distinguish them from the discredited repetitive or recurrent variety. These prevailing beliefs about historical process need to be brought into the light of day, tested against the historical record, and if necessary replaced by a more accurate perspective.

南非真相与和解委员会提供了一个平台,让那些以种族隔离之名犯下罪行的人能够公开承认自己的所作所为,并获得受害者的宽恕。这一直面痛苦历史的过程,有助于南非人民团结一致,共同面对未来。(Topfoto/Image Works)

South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided a forum where those who had committed crimes in the name of apartheid could admit openly what they had done and receive forgiveness from their victims. This process of facing up to a painful recent past proved helpful in allowing South Africans to work together to face the future. (Topfoto/Image Works)

一项基于历史进程且经受住了时间考验的预测关乎南非的政治命运。20世纪60年代,当大多数热带非洲殖民地争取政治独立时,人们普遍认为南非也将很快实现多数人统治。尽管白人压迫根深蒂固,但大众民族主义显然是自1912年非洲人国民大会成立以来一系列进程的成果,这些进程的特点是政治话语和群众动员技巧日益成熟。此外,南非的案例可以被视为自19世纪末以来不断积聚的全球反殖民民族主义现象的一部分。从这个意义上讲,可以说历史站在南非非洲民族主义一边。然而,无法预测的是,随后的政治秩序将以何种形式出现,以及它将如何实现——是通过自下而上的革命,还是通过自上而下的权力下放——这些细节问题只有未来才能揭晓。但南非历史进程的发展方向似乎很明确。虽然时间跨度比预想的要长——这恰恰体现了历史进程可能像螃蟹一样缓慢推进——但总体预测还是相当准确的。18

One prediction based on historical process which has stood the test of time concerns the political destiny of South Africa. During the 1960s, when most colonies in tropical Africa were securing their political independence, it was widely assumed that majority rule would shortly come about in South Africa too. Despite the weight of white oppression, mass nationalism was visibly the outcome of a process that dated back to the foundation of the African National Congress in 1912, and that had been marked by a growing sophistication in both political discourse and techniques of mass mobilization. Moreover, the South African case could be seen as part of a worldwide phenomenon of anti-colonial nationalism which had been building up since the late nineteenth century. In that sense history might be said to be ‘on the side’ of African nationalism in South Africa. What could not be predicted was the form of the succeeding political order, and the manner in which it would be achieved, whether by revolution from below or by devolution from above: those were matters of detail which only the future could divulge. But the direction in which the historical process was unfolding in South Africa seemed clear. The time-scale turned out to be more extended than had been supposed – thus demonstrating the crab-like way in which a historical process may unfold – but the general prediction was accurate enough.18

非洲人国民大会

African National Congress

南非黑人政党,成立于 1912 年,领导了反对种族隔离的斗争。

The black South African political party, founded in 1912, which led resistance to apartheid.

有时,由于存在不止一条可能的轨迹,确定有效且恰当的历史进程会变得复杂。以当前关于家庭“解体”的争论为例。媒体处理这一问题的方式无疑体现了过程性思维。相关的进程通常被认为是个人道德的衰落,而错误的立法,尤其是始于1857年《婚姻诉讼法》的立法,助长了离婚自由化的进程,加剧了这一趋势。然而,历史学家们则提出了更为……这是一个根本性的长期过程,即家庭在生产中角色的转变。大约250年前,大部分工作都是在家庭内部或附近完成的。择偶时,准配偶不仅受伴侣的个人魅力影响,也同样重视其持家和养家糊口的能力;婚姻的破裂,无论是分居还是遗弃,都意味着一个生产单元的终结,因此大多数婚姻都能维持到一方去世。工业革命改变了这一切:工厂(以及其他大型企业)的发展意味着大部分生产不再发生在家庭环境中,对家庭成员的控制也不再是经济的核心。如今,个人满足感已成为婚姻最主要的驱动力,人们几乎没有理由继续维持那些不再带来幸福的家庭关系。生产型家庭的衰落,而非个人道德的崩溃,似乎才是这里涉及的关键历史进程;鉴于工作与家庭分离的趋势几乎没有逆转的迹象,我们可以合理预测,我们的社会将继续经历相对较高的婚姻破裂率。20

Sometimes identifying the valid and appropriate historical process is complicated by the presence of more than one possible trajectory. Take the current debate about the ‘breakdown’ of the family. Processual thinking is certainly very evident in the way the media handle this issue. The relevant process is generally seen to be the decline of personal morality, aided and abetted by misguided legislation, beginning with the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, which set in train the liberalization of divorce.19 Historians, on the other hand, bring into play a much more fundamental and long-term process, namely the changing role of the home in production. Some 250 years ago most work was done in or adjacent to the home. In selecting a mate, prospective spouses were influenced as much by the home-making and bread-winning skills of their partners as by their personal attractions; the ending of a marriage through separation or desertion meant the end of a productive unit, and for this reason most marriages endured until death. The Industrial Revolution changed all this: the growth of the factory (and other large firms) meant that most production no longer took place in a domestic setting, and control over domestic dependants ceased to be economically central. Now that personal fulfilment is by far the most compelling rationale of marriage, there is far less reason for people to stay in family relationships that no longer bring them happiness. The decline of the productive household, rather than a collapse of individual morality, would seem to be the critical historical process involved here; and given that the separation of work from home shows little sign of being reversed, it is a reasonable prediction that our society will continue to experience a comparatively high rate of marital breakdown.20

婚姻诉讼法

Matrimonial Causes Act

1857年的这项法案使夫妇能够通过新设立的离婚法庭寻求离婚。此前,离婚只能通过议会特别通过的法案才能实现。

This act of 1857 enabled couples to seek divorce through the newly created divorce courts. Previously, it had only been obtainable through a specially passed Act of Parliament.

质疑假设

Questioning assumptions

但过程性思维最重要的作用在于,它为支撑众多社会身份的永恒性和永恒性假设提供了一种替代方案。正如我们在上一章所看到的,民族往往认为自己不受时间变迁的影响。本质主义的谬误经不起历史研究的检验。例如,“英国人”这一概念在十八世纪是一个新造的范畴,旨在反映苏格兰和英格兰刚刚合并的事实,而它的构建基础是排除罗马天主教徒和法国人。到了二十一世纪初,“英国性”的文化意义或许比以往任何时候都更加不确定,而随着苏格兰独立进程的推进,英国这个国家似乎也走向了解体。21同样,任何关于“德国人”身份的理解,不仅必须考虑到大多数德国人在19世纪中叶之前所处的众多国家,还必须考虑到导致许多德语国家(尤其是奥地利)在1871年被排除在德意志帝国之外的政治考量。历史的视角要求我们应该放弃民族是有机体的观点;用一部颇具影响力的著作的话来说,将民族视为“想象的共同体”或许更接近真相。22

But the most important role of processual thinking is in offering an alternative to the assumptions of permanence and timelessness that underpin so many social identities. As we saw in the last chapter, nations tend to imagine themselves as unchanged by the vicissitudes of time. The fallacy of essentialism does not hold up well against historical research. ‘British’, for example, was in the eighteenth century a newly minted category to take account of the recent Union of Scotland and England, and it was built on the exclusion of Roman Catholics and the French. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the cultural meaning of Britishness is probably less certain than it has ever been, while the British state seems set for disintegration as Scotland edges closer to independence.21 In the same way, any notion of what it means to be German has to come to terms not only with the multitude of states under which most Germans lived until the mid-nineteenth century but also with the political calculations that led to the exclusion of many German-speaking lands (notably Austria) from the German Empire in 1871. A historical perspective requires us to abandon the idea that nations are organic; it is nearer the truth to regard them, in the words of an influential text, as ‘imagined communities’.22

苏格兰和英格兰联合

Union of Scotland and England

1707年,英格兰和苏格兰的议会通过了《英格兰与苏格兰联合法案》。尽管双方都从中获得了经济利益,但英国人此举的主要目的是为了阻止天主教王位觊觎者詹姆斯·爱德华·斯图亚特王子成为苏格兰国王。该法案最终在苏格兰议会获得通过,完全是靠贿赂才得以实现的。

The Act of Union between England and Scotland was passed by both countries’ Parliaments in 1707. Although there were economic advantages to both sides, the English wanted it primarily to prevent the Catholic pretender, Prince James Edward Stuart, becoming king of Scotland. The act only passed through the Scottish Parliament with the help of wholesale bribery.

“种族”一词也引发了类似的问题。现代意义上的“种族”最初是作为一种范畴而发展起来的,旨在为西方日益增长的对其他民族的统治地位辩护。它将社会建构的事物视为固定不变、由生物学决定的,并且最常被用来强化对从属群体的政治和经济控制(例如在殖民时期的非洲和纳粹德国)。早期历史学家在描述西方全球扩张时,强烈暗示着被征服的“土著”民族在本土文化和吸收西方技术的能力上都处于劣势;而这些负面的刻板印象反过来又维护了英国人——或者法国人、德国人——“种族”的自我美化形象。近年来,具有强烈民族认同感的少数族裔构建了一种可以称之为“反向话语”的论述;他们也接受了“种族”的概念,因为这个词将生物学上的血统和文化结合在一起,形成了一种强大的融合体,最大限度地增强了群体凝聚力,并强调了与其他群体的距离。如今,在美国和英国的黑人中,非洲中心主义的支持率正在上升——这种观点相信种族差异是绝对的,并认为非洲的文化传统是正统地传承给现代散居黑人的。强调共同祖先和淡化外部影响会导致一种“文化内部主义”。恰当的回应是指出,没有哪个国家是完全种族单一的,并强调奴隶制以及欧洲和新世界黑人与白人之间其他形式的文化接触所形成的塑造性经历。历史研究的目的不是削弱黑人身份,而是将其锚定在真实的过去,而不是神话般的建构之上。其结果很可能与当今黑人和白人的生活境况更为密切相关。种族和民族身份的形成从来都不是一劳永逸的,而是一个持续且不断变化的过程。23

The term ‘race’ raises similar problems. In its modern form, ‘race’ was originally developed as a category that justified the growing ascendancy of the West over other peoples. It treated as fixed and biologically determined what is socially constructed, and it has been most strongly developed as a means of reinforcing political and economic control over subordinate groups (as in colonial Africa and Nazi Germany). The way in which an earlier generation of historians wrote about Western global expansion strongly implied that the ‘native’ peoples at the receiving end were inferior both in their indigenous culture and in their capacity to assimilate Western techniques; and these negative stereotypes served in turn to sustain a flattering self-image of the British – or French or German – ‘race’. More recently, minorities with a strong ethnic identity have constructed what might be called a ‘reverse discourse’; they too embrace the concept of ‘race’, because the term brings biological descent and culture together in a powerful amalgam that maximizes group cohesion and emphasizes distance from other groups. Among blacks in America and Britain there is today rising support for Afrocentrism – the belief in an absolute sense of ethnic difference and in the transmission of an authentic cultural tradition from Africa to blacks of the modern diaspora. A stress on common ancestry and a downplaying of outside influences lead to a kind of ‘cultural insiderism’. The appropriate response is to point out that no nation has ever been ethnically homogeneous and to stress the formative experience of slavery and other forms of culture contact between black and white in Europe and the New World. The purpose of historical work is not to undermine black identity but to anchor it in a real past instead of a mythical construction. The outcome is likely to bear a rather closer relation to the circumstances in which black and white people live today. The formation of racial and national identities is never a once-and-for-all event, but a continuous and contingent process.23

侨民

diaspora

一个民族向广阔区域的扩散。

The dispersal of a people over a wide area.

均质

homogeneous

都是同类。

All of the same sort.

挑战“自然”的概念

Challenging notions of ‘natural’

适用于国家的道理,更适用于“自然”领域。当我们的社会结构发生令人不快的变化时,我们常常通过断言被取代的事物一直存在来表达我们对它的依恋——改变的并非某个特定阶段或短暂时期,而是某种传统、根本或“自然”的东西。性别问题尤其如此。当我们读到十七世纪英国那位精明能干的寡妇,或是十九世纪妇女组织为废除奴隶制而奋斗的浪潮(远早于妇女参政权运动)时,女性的“传统”角色就显得越来越站不住脚了。24男性和男性气质的新历史同样动摇了既有的认知。人们通常认为,传统的父亲角色是情感上疏离但对家庭管教却亲力亲为的结合体。这通常就是“维多利亚时代”父亲角色的含义。但维多利亚时代的人们与子女保持距离并对他们施以严厉惩罚,与其说是悠久传统的巅峰,不如说是过去的一种反动。著名政治记者威廉·科贝特回忆说,他年轻时为人父的时光“穿梭于笔杆和婴儿之间”;他记得自己“数百次”地喂奶、哄孩子睡觉,尽管当时有仆人可以代劳。 25科贝特写作于1830年,正值风向开始转变,不再像他三十年前年轻时那样,父亲与幼童的密切互动。如今,我们更应该认识到,如今父亲全身心投入育儿并非乌托邦式的幻想,而是英国文化中相对较近时期就已存在的一种模式。事实上,在过去两百年间,甚至可能更早,父亲的角色一直在不断变化。 26近年来,对历史研究实践影响最大的学者之一是法国历史学家和哲学家米歇尔·福柯。他的核心原则是,人类文化的任何方面都不是上帝赋予的,也不是脱离历史的。在他的历史著作中,他描绘了人类在性、疾病和精神错乱等方面的重大转变。通过选择这类重要主题,追求他所谓的“当下考古学”,福柯的影响力远远超出了学术界。27

What is true of the nation applies still more to the ‘natural’. When unwelcome changes in our social arrangements are afoot, we often express our attachment to what is being replaced by asserting that it has always been there – that what is changing is not one particular phase with a limited time-span but something traditional, or fundamental, or ‘natural’. This is especially true of gender. The ‘traditional’ role of women looks less and less tenable when we read about the entrepreneurial widow of seventeenth-century England, or the groundswell of women’s organizations that worked for the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century, well ahead of the agitation for women’s suffrage.24 The new history of men and masculinity is equally unsettling of received truths. Traditional fatherhood is often thought to have combined an emotionally hands-off approach with a distinctly hands-on approach to family discipline. That is usually what is meant by ‘Victorian’ fatherhood. But in so far as the Victorians kept their distance from their children and meted out harsh punishments to them, this was a reaction against the past, rather than the climax of a long tradition. The celebrated political journalist William Cobbett recalled that his time as a young father was spent ‘between the pen and the baby’; he remembered how he had fed and put his babies to sleep ‘hundreds of times, though there were servants to whom the task might have been transferred’.25 Cobbett was writing in 1830, just when the tide was beginning to turn against the close paternal involvement with young children that had been so common when he was a young man thirty years before. It makes a difference now to know that a fully engaged fatherhood today is not some Utopian fantasy but a pattern that has existed within English culture in the comparatively recent past. In fact codes of fatherhood have been in continuous flux throughout the past 200 years, and probably earlier.26 One of the most salutary influences on the practice of history in recent years has been the French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault. His cardinal principle was that no aspect of human culture is God-given or lies outside history, and in his historical work he plotted some of the major shifts that have occurred in the human experience of sexuality, sickness and insanity. In selecting major themes of this kind in pursuit of what he called ‘an archaeology of the present’, Foucault achieved an influence that extended far beyond academia.27

创业寡妇

entrepreneurial widow

我们现在知道,十七、十八世纪的英国有很多寡妇经营着自己的生意,而且女性担任有影响力的职位也绝非罕见,而历史学家长期以来一直认为这些职位是男性的专属。

We now know that many widows in seventeenth and eighteenth-century England ran their own businesses, and that it was by no means unusual for women to assume positions of influence that historians had long assumed were reserved for men.

废除奴隶制

abolition of slavery

废除跨大西洋奴隶贸易、废除奴隶制本身、以及后来的非洲内部奴隶贸易的运动,构成了十九世纪最重要、最具影响力的游说运动之一。教会团体和妇女在这一过程中,在大西洋两岸都发挥了重要作用。

The campaign for the abolition first of the transatlantic slave trade, then of slavery itself, and later of the internal African slave trade, constituted one of the most important and influential lobbying movements of the nineteenth century. Church groups and women played a prominent role in the process on both sides of the Atlantic.

V

V

为了历史而历史?

History for its own sake?

诚然,历史具有广泛而重要的实际意义,但问题依然存在:这是否应该影响历史学家开展工作的方式?在兰克革命之前,这个问题几乎不可能出现。历史学家们秉持着与读者相同的信念,认为历史教育能够为公民和政治家提供必要的训练。他们理所当然地认为,历史为理性分析政治奠定了基础;事实上,从十六世纪的圭恰尔迪尼到十九世纪的麦考利,许多杰出的历史学家都积极参与公共事务。然而,历史的专业化改变了这一切。到了十九世纪末,历史学科在欧洲各地的大学课程中占据了显著地位,并由一批职业生涯主要局限于学术界的新型历史学家掌控。他们学科传统上声称能够提供实践指导的说法似乎变得无关紧要——甚至近乎一种尴尬。他们严格遵循历史主义的核心原则,即历史研究本身就是一种目的,而不太关注这种方法可能带来的实际益处。这种态度对英国历史学界影响深远。一代保守派历史学家深受哲学家迈克尔·奥克肖特的影响,奥克肖特痛斥他所谓的“对过去的实用主义态度”;他认为这是“历史学最大的、至今未被战胜的敌人”。 28 格雷厄姆·埃尔顿则是当时主流正统观点的直言不讳的拥护者:

Granted, then, that history has a varied and significant practical relevance, the question remains whether this should influence the way in which historians set about their work. Prior to the Rankean revolution, this question could hardly have arisen. Historians believed what their audience assumed, that a historical education offered a training for citizens and statesmen alike. They took it for granted that history furnished the basis for a rational analysis of politics; indeed, many of the best historians, from Guicciardini in the sixteenth century to Macaulay in the nineteenth, were active in public life. All this was changed by the professionalization of history. By the late nineteenth century the subject featured prominently in the university curriculum all over Europe, controlled by a new breed of historians whose careers were largely confined to academic life. Their subject’s traditional claim to offer practical guidance seemed irrelevant – almost an embarrassment. They adhered strictly to the central tenet of historicism, that history should be studied for its own sake, without paying much attention to the practical benefits that could accrue from this approach. This attitude has been very influential with the historical profession in Britain. A generation of conservative historians was inspired by the philosopher Michael Oakeshott, who deplored what he called the ‘practical attitude to the past;’ he regarded it as ‘the chief undefeated enemy of “history”’.28 G.R. Elton was an outspoken champion of the prevailing orthodoxy:

历史教师必须抵制“社会”必然存在的无知诉求……即要求历史知识能够立即应用。他们需要牢记,历史研究的“用处”几乎不在于其所传授的知识,也不在于从史前视角理解当下的具体问题;而更多地在于,历史研究能够培养出其独有的判断标准和推理能力,这些标准和能力源于历史研究的本质,并且异常清晰、平衡且富有同情心。29

Teachers of history must set their faces against the necessarily ignorant demands of ‘society’ … for immediate applicability. They need to recall that the ‘usefulness’ of historical studies lies hardly at all in the knowledge they purvey and in the understanding of specific present problems from their prehistory; it lies much more in the fact that they produce standards of judgement and powers of reasoning which they alone develop, which arise from their very essence, and which are unusually clear-headed, balanced and compassionate.29

麦考利(1800–59)

Macaulay (1800–59)

托马斯·巴宾顿·麦考利,英国历史学家、诗人兼行政官员。除了撰写畅销书《英国史》外,麦考利还曾担任印度总督委员会成员、爱丁堡选区议员,以及墨尔本勋爵政府的陆军大臣。

Thomas Babington Macaulay, British historian, poet and administrator. As well as writing a bestselling History of England, Macaulay served on the Council of the Governor-General of India, as MP for Edinburgh, and as Secretary at War in the government of Lord Melbourne.

除了提供智力训练外,历史研究也被视为一种个人追求,它至多能使个人通过跳出自身直接经验的局限来获得某种程度的自我认知;正如V.H. Galbraith所言,“历史研究是一件个人之事,其中活动本身通常比结果更有价值。30这两种理由并非历史所独有:训练思维是所有名副其实的学术学科的一部分,而拓展个人经验的说法,文学教师也能以同样甚至更强的说服力进行论证

Apart from providing an intellectual training, the study of history is represented as a personal pursuit which at most enables the individual to achieve some self-awareness by stepping outside his or her immediate experience; in the austere formulation of V.H. Galbraith, ‘the study of history is a personal matter, in which the activity is generally more valuable than the result’.30 Neither of these justifications is peculiar to history: training the mind is part of all academic disciplines worth the name, while the claim to enlarge the individual’s experience can be argued with equal, if not greater, conviction by teachers of literature.

值得注意的是,这种对“相关性”的刻意回避是有其政治背景的。埃尔顿和加尔布雷思都想到了在希特勒和斯大林政权下,相关性历史研究所导致的过度宣传(埃尔顿本人是纳粹德国的难民):纳粹和苏联的历史学家都是国家雇员,他们被要求重复党关于历史的粗鄙教条。在欧洲,如此规模的极权主义暴行已成为历史,但在许多国家,历史学术研究仍然容易受到政治压力,尤其是民族主义压力的影响。在这种背景下,学术上的超脱似乎显得高尚。正如彼得·曼德勒所言,“历史学家们不愿考虑他们学科的用途,唯恐激起垂死的沙文主义余烬”。 31

It should be noted that there was a political context to this fastidious recoil from ‘relevance’. Both Elton and Galbraith had in mind the excesses of propaganda to which relevant history had led under the regimes of Hitler and Stalin (Elton was a refugee from Nazi Germany): Nazi and Soviet historians were state employees, expected to repeat crude party dogma about the past. In Europe totalitarian excesses on that scale are a thing of the past, but in many countries historical scholarship is still vulnerable to political pressure, especially of a nationalist kind. Against that background, scholarly detachment can seem virtuous. As Peter Mandler has suggested, ‘historians shy away from considering the uses of their discipline for fear of stirring up dying chauvinist embers’.31

“为历史而历史”的一个积极成果是,它促使人们全心全意地致力于在物质和精神的各个层面重现或复兴过去。有些历史学家对过去真实面貌的迷恋凌驾于其他一切考量之上。法国大革命史的著名历史学家理查德·科布就是一个显著的例子:

One positive result of ‘history for its own sake’ is a wholehearted commitment to the re-creation or resurrection of the past in every material and mental dimension. There are historians for whom a fascination with the past as it was really lived and experienced overrides all other considerations. A notable case was Richard Cobb, a leading historian of the French Revolution:

历史学家首先应当保持永无止境的好奇心和探究精神,不断试图探究他人的隐私,并跨越阶级、国籍、世代、时代和性别的界限。他的主要目标是让逝者复活。而且,就像美国的“殡仪师”一样,他或许会允许自己使用一些行业技巧:这里点一点胭脂那里一笔勾勒,脸颊上塞点棉花,以使手术更加逼真。32 [着重号为原文所有]

The historian should, above all, be endlessly inquisitive and prying, constantly attempting to force the privacy of others, and to cross the frontiers of class, nationality, generation, period, and sex. His principal aim is to make the dead live. And, like the American ‘mortician’, he may allow himself a few artifices of the trade: a touch of rouge here, a pencil-stroke there, a little cotton wool in the cheeks, to make the operation more convincing.32 [emphasis added]

科布对法国大革命时期社会阴暗面的精彩研究,尤其是《巴黎之死》(1978),无疑证明了他的研究方法是正确的。或许所有历史学家都能追溯到对历史本身的好奇心,这种好奇心往往在童年时期被周围可见的历史遗迹所激发。人们希望,像科布这样在重现历史方面拥有特殊天赋的历史学家永远不会绝迹。但认为所有历史学家都应该满足于此,那就大错特错了。对他们中的大多数人来说,这只是解释历史的必要前提。他们的目的历史学的目的是识别趋势,分析原因和后果——简而言之,就是将历史解读为一个过程,而不仅仅是一系列色彩鲜艳的幻灯片。因此,研究英国革命的历史学家不仅着眼于探究内战的真相或新模范军士兵的感受,更致力于探究战争爆发的原因以及它给英国政治和社会带来的变革。再举一个更远的例子: 1879年的英祖战争导致祖鲁王国解体,一支英国军团全军覆没,其悲剧性已然不容小觑;但当我们审视导致双方走向冲突的背叛、相互误解和文化冲突时,便会发现其中蕴含着更深层次的讽刺和悲怆。 33这代表了历史主义的另一面。没有它,历史的实际解释功能就根本无法实现。(第六章将进一步探讨重现与解释之间的区别。)

Cobb’s marvellously evocative studies of the seamy side of life in revolutionary France, notably Death in Paris (1978), certainly vindicate his approach. Probably all historians can trace their vocation back to a curiosity about the past for its own sake, often aroused in childhood by the visible relics of the past around them. And there will always, one hopes, be historians like Cobb with special gifts in the re-creation of the past. But it is quite wrong to suppose that historians in general should be content with this. For most of them it is the essential preliminary to explaining the past. Their purpose is to identify trends, to analyse causes and consequences – in short to interpret history as a process and not just as a series of brightly coloured lantern-slides. Thus historians of the English Revolution approach their work with a view to discovering not only what happened in the Civil War or what it felt like to be a soldier in the New Model Army but also why the war occurred and what changes it brought about in the nature of English politics and society. Or to take a more distant example: the events of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, which saw the dissolution of the Zulu kingdom and the destruction of an entire British regiment, were tragic enough; but a whole other dimension of irony and pathos is revealed when we consider the betrayals, the mutual misunderstandings and the culture conflict that set the two sides on a collision course.33 This represents the other side of historicism. Without it, history’s practical explanatory functions could not be fulfilled at all. (The distinction between re-creation and explanation is further explored in Chapter 6.)

《巴黎之死》

Death in Paris

理查德·科布(1917-1996)是一位颇具传奇色彩的英国法国历史​​权威。《巴黎之死》一书通过一系列与从塞纳河中打捞出的尸体有关的警方记录,展现了19世纪巴黎的社会历史。

Richard Cobb (1917–96) was a colourful British authority on the history of France. Death in Paris gives a glimpse of the social history of nineteenth-century Paris through a collection of police records relating to dead bodies fished out of the Seine.

新模范军

New Model Army

这是英国议会在英国内战(1642-1649年)期间建立的一支训练有素的职业军队。人们普遍认为,正是这支军队扭转了战争局势,最终战胜了查理一世国王。

The highly trained professional army created by Parliament during the English Civil Wars (1642–9). It is usually credited with having turned the tide of the war against King Charles 1.

英祖战争

Anglo-Zulu War

又称祖鲁战争(1879年)。战争始于英国对南非祖鲁兰地区毫无挑衅的军事入侵,随后一支英军纵队在伊桑德尔瓦纳被祖鲁人全歼。最终,凭借更先进的技术和更强大的火力,英国人击败了祖鲁人。

Also known as the Zulu War (1879). It began with a completely unprovoked British military invasion of Zululand in South Africa, after which an entire British army column was wiped out by the Zulu at Isandhlwana. In the end, superior technology and firepower enabled the British to defeat the Zulu.

拒绝相关性

The rejection of relevance

然而,历史解释完全可以不考虑社会相关性而进行,而这,而非严格的“复兴主义”立场,才是主流学术观点。因为解释本身也可以被寻求。诸如第一次世界大战的起源或维多利亚时代的社会福利制度等议题,可以完全独立地进行探讨,而无需考虑它们可能对我们今天面临的选择产生的影响。学术课程的制定有时基于这样的假设:历史由若干具有永久意义的核心主题和事件构成,这些主题和事件由于引发了广泛的研究和辩论,因此是训练智力的最佳素材。诸如非洲史或家庭史等新兴研究领域则被视为与“真正的历史”无关的、一时兴起的爱好。大卫·坎纳丁在评论大学教学中逐渐回避重大且具有争议性议题的现象时写道:

However, it is perfectly possible for historical explanation to be pursued without reference to the claims of social relevance, and this, rather than the strictly ‘resurrectionist’ position, represents the mainstream academic view. For explanation, too, can be sought ‘for its own sake’. Topics such as the origins of the First World War or the social welfare provision of the Victorians can be tackled in an entirely self-contained way without any recognition that they might have a bearing on the choices available to us today. Academic syllabuses are sometimes drawn up on the assumption that history consists of a number of core themes and episodes of permanent significance which, because they have generated extensive research and debate, offer the best material for training the intellect. New areas of study such as the history of Africa or the history of the family are dismissed as passing fancies peripheral to ‘real history’. Commenting on the gradual retreat from big, contentious topics in university teaching, David Cannadine writes:

认为历史能够提供教育,帮助我们了解自身在历史长河中的位置,甚至解释当今世界如何形成的这种观念,几乎已经消失殆尽。34

The belief that history provides an education, that it helps us understand ourselves in time, or even that it explains something of how the present world came into being, has all but vanished.34

很难不从这些态度中察觉到一种根本性的保守主义:如果历史的定义排除了任何带有“现实意义”的内容,那么它就不太可能质疑当今的主流神话,或提出对现有制度的激进替代方案。这就解释了为什么“现实意义”的历史研究会招致不敬的揭黑指责。35毫无疑问,保守派在历史学界的人数比例过高。正如前文所述,历史主义在19世纪的胜利很大程度上归功于保守派对法国大革命的强烈反抗。时至今日,研究过去仍然常常吸引那些对当下社会和政治变革方向持敌对态度,并在一个更早、更和谐的秩序中寻求慰藉的人。这种观点在英国地方史中尤为突出:W.G.霍斯金斯是该领域的奠基人之一,他的著作中充满了对旧时英国乡村社会逝去的怀旧之情。36

It is hard not to detect a fundamental conservatism in these attitudes: if history is defined to exclude anything that smacks of ‘relevance’, it is less likely to call into question the dominant mythologies of today or suggest radical alternatives to current institutions. This explains why ‘relevant’ historical enquiry attracts charges of irreverent muckraking.35 There can be little doubt that conservatives are disproportionately represented in the ranks of the historical profession. As noted earlier, the triumph of historicism during the nineteenth century owed much to the strength of the conservative reaction to the French Revolution. It remains the case that the study of the past often attracts those who are hostile to the direction of social and political change in their own day and who find comfort in an earlier and more congenial order. This outlook has been marked in English local history: the writings of W.G. Hoskins, a formative influence on this field, are suffused with a nostalgic regret for the passing of the old English rural society.36

然而,对社会相关性的否定通常并非以明确的保守主义措辞提出。它们更常见的辩护理由是,“相关的”历史与历史学家忠于历史的首要义务以及学术客观性的要求相悖。这种论点在学术历史学家中广为流传,许多在其他方面并不保守,但却认为自身职业操守受到威胁的人也支持这一观点。但无论这种否定是否基于保守态度,否认实际相关性都过于谨慎。新历史意识的最初倡导者们与时事保持距离是完全可以理解的,因为他们深知历史在过去曾遭受先知和宣传者的严重迫害。但历史研究学术标准的争论早已尘埃落定。在不牺牲学术标准的前提下,可以兼顾实际目的——部分原因在于专业历史学家们对彼此的作品进行严格的审查,以发现其中的偏见。

Disclaimers of social relevance are not, however, usually couched in explicitly conservative terms. They are more commonly defended on the grounds that ‘relevant’ history is incompatible with the historian’s primary obligation to be true to the past, and with the requirements of scholarly objectivity. This argument has a wide currency among academic historians, being supported by many who are not conservative in other respects but who see their professional integrity at stake. But whether grounded in a conservative attitude or not, the denial of practical relevance is unduly cautious. It is entirely understandable that the original champions of the new historical consciousness should have distanced themselves from topicality, because they were only too aware how severely their subject had suffered at the hands of prophets and propagandists in the past. But the battle for scholarly standards of historical enquiry within the profession has long since been won. Practical purposes can be entertained without sacrificing standards of scholarship – partly because professional historians are so zealous in scrutinizing each other’s work for bias.

相关历史研究领域

Relevant fields of historical study

历史学家当然应该力求忠实于过去;问题是,究竟是哪个过去?面对几乎无穷无尽的证据,他们该如何抉择?鉴于人类活动的复杂性以及选择某些问题或时期比其他问题或时期更值得关注的必要性,历史学家完全有理由让当前的社会关切影响其研究选择。国际史起源于20世纪20年代,是历史学家对当时兴起的——尽管短暂的——国际主义思潮做出的积极贡献。过去五十年间历史研究范围的显著扩展,很大程度上归功于少数历史学家对时效性需求的积极响应。20世纪60年代美国城市的危机催生了“新城市史”,其重点在于社会流动史、少数群体政治史以及城市贫民窟的贫困史。非洲史几乎在同一时期由非洲和西方的历史学家发展起来,他们认为非洲史对于新独立的非洲国家的未来以及外界对“黑暗大陆”的理解都至关重要。近年来,随着家庭、职场和公共生活中传统性别角色的改变,女性史的研究也迅速发展。在这些领域,人们得以探索其他可能性,发现未被选择的道路,并接触到至今仍影响着社会的各种制约因素。在这些领域,历史研究并非仅仅证实显而易见的事实。正如哈罗德·詹姆斯所言,“当历史揭示出与当前问题相关的意想不到的真相时,它便具有一种独特的合法性”。 37

Historians should, of course, strive to be true to the past; the question is, which past? Faced with the almost limitless evidence of human activity and the need to select certain problems or periods as more deserving of attention than others, the historian is entirely justified in allowing current social concerns to affect his or her choice. International history originated in the 1920s as a very positive contribution by historians to the new – if short-lived – ethos of internationalism. The notable broadening of the scope of historical enquiry during the past fifty years is largely the result of a small minority of historians responding to the demands of topicality. The crisis in America’s cities during the 1960s brought into being the ‘new urban history’, with its stress on the history of social mobility, minority group politics and inner-city deprivation. African history was developed at about the same time in Africa and the West by historians who believed that it was indispensable both to the prospects of the newly independent states and to the outside world’s understanding of the ‘dark continent’. More recently, women’s history has grown rapidly as traditional gender roles have been modified in the family, the workplace and public life. In each of these areas the door has been opened to alternative possibilities, to paths not taken, and to conditioning factors whose influence still weighs on the present. In none of these areas has historical enquiry simply confirmed the obvious. As Harold James has put it, ‘history has a peculiar legitimacy when it tells us something unexpected about current problems’.37

美国城市危机

crisis in America’s cities

20世纪60年代中期,美国许多城市爆发了严重的骚乱。骚乱始于1965年洛杉矶的瓦茨区,当时年轻的黑人工人阶级抗议他们所处的贫困和肮脏环境,但骚乱很快蔓延至全国。1968年马丁·路德·金博士遇刺后,美国陷入了进一步的暴力冲突。

The mid-1960s saw serious rioting in a large number of American cities. The riots began in 1965 in the Watts district of Los Angeles, where young working-class blacks were protesting against the poverty and squalor in which they lived, but soon spread across the whole nation. The country erupted in further violence after the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King in 1968.

黑暗大陆

dark continent

这是维多利亚时代对非洲的常用昵称。它既指非洲人的肤色,也指西方对非洲大陆内陆知之甚少这一事实。

The standard Victorian nickname for Africa. It referred both to the colour of Africans’ skin and to the fact that so little was known in the West about the interior of the continent.

显然,那些宣称自身具有现实意义的新兴历史领域,很容易被意识形态操纵。但历史学家在这些情况下的责任是明确的:他们应该提供一种能够为辩论提供信息的历史视角,而不是服务于任何特定的意识形态。回应“现实意义”的呼声,并非是要篡改或歪曲过去,而是要将那些如今与我们更直接相关的历史层面从遗忘中拯救出来。例如,非洲历史学家应该致力于解释非洲社会的历史演变,而不是构建民族主义神话。五十年的研究和著述成果之一,就是如今区分这两者比以往任何时候都更加容易。我们当下的优先事项应该决定我们向过去提出的问题,而不是答案。正如本书后面将要阐述的,历史研究这门学科使得这种区分具有重要意义。与此同时,认为以过去自身的视角重构过去就能保证客观性,这是一种谬误。没有一篇历史重现的文章可以反驳探究者的价值观(见第 7 章)。

Obviously new areas of history which proclaim their relevance run the risk of being manipulated by ideologues. But the responsibility of historians in these cases is clear: it is to provide a historical perspective that can inform debate rather than to service any particular ideology. Responding to the call of ‘relevance’ is not a matter of falsifying or distorting the past but rather of rescuing from oblivion aspects of that past that now speak to us more directly. Historians of Africa, for example, should be concerned to explain the historical evolution of African societies, not to create a nationalist mythology, and one of the consequences of five decades of research and writing is that it is now much easier to distinguish between the two than it used to be. Our priorities in the present should determine the questions we ask of the past, but not the answers. As will be shown later in the book, the discipline of historical study makes this a meaningful distinction. At the same time, it is a fallacy to suppose that the aspiration to reconstruct the past in its own terms carries the promise of objectivity: no essay in historical re-creation is proof against the values of the enquirer (see Chapter 7).

公共历史

Public history

但那些为了追求客观知识而放弃现实意义的历史学家,不仅是在追逐虚幻的目标,更是在逃避更广泛的责任。人们出于求知欲阅读历史固然是原因之一,但绝非唯一原因。社会也期望对历史的解读能够与当下息息相关,并以此为基础制定未来的决策。历史学家或许会辩称,既然他们的专长在于过去而非现在,那么阐明其研究的实际意义并非他们的职责。但事实上,只有他们才有资格为社会提供真正具有历史视角的视角,并使其免受历史神话的危害。如果受过专业训练的历史学家不履行这些职责,那么那些信息匮乏、偏见较多的人就会炮制出毫无根据的解读。杰弗里·巴拉克拉夫(Geoffrey Barraclough)——一位倡导当代历史价值的资深人士——五十多年前所言,在今天依然适用:

But historians who renounce relevance in the cause of objective knowledge are not only pursuing a chimera; they are also evading a wider responsibility. Intellectual curiosity about the past for its own sake is certainly one reason why people read history, but it is not the only one. Society also expects an interpretation of the past that is relevant to the present and a basis for formulating decisions about the future. Historians may argue that since their expertise concerns the past not the present, it is not their job to draw out the practical import of their work. But they are in fact the only people qualified to equip society with a truly historical perspective and to save it from the damaging effects of exposure to historical myth. If professionally trained historians do not carry out these functions, then others who are less well informed and more prejudiced will produce ill-founded interpretations. What Geoffrey Barraclough, a veteran champion of contemporary values in history, said more than fifty years ago applies with equal force today:

人是历史动物,对自身的过去有着深刻的感知;如果他无法通过明确而真实的历史来整合过去,他就会通过隐含而虚假的历史来整合过去。任何一位对自己工作的价值抱有信心的历史学家都无法忽视这一挑战;而应对之道并非回避“相关性”问题,而是接受这一事实并探究其意义。38

Man is an historical animal, with a deep sense of his own past; and if he cannot integrate the past by a history explicit and true, he will integrate it by a history implicit and false. The challenge is one which no historian with any conviction of the value of his work can ignore; and the way to meet it is not to evade the issue of ‘relevance’, but to accept the fact and work out its implications.38

其中一项意义在于,要建立能够与更广泛公众沟通的渠道。如果历史学家的部分(至少部分)研究涉及时事热点问题,那么他们当然有义务为远超学术同行和学生的读者群体写作;他们应该参与公共历史研究。三十年前,这还是一个陌生的概念。如今,它已被广泛理解,但其定义比我在此使用的语境更为宽泛。公共历史是一个涵盖历史学家产生公共影响的各种方式的总称。其中最广为人知的是学者为文化遗产机构,特别是博物馆提供的咨询服务。“公共历史”的概念也足够灵活,足以涵盖社区项目(例如与地方历史团体合作)并为政府部门提供政策建议。所有这些活动都有助于提升公众对历史学的认知度;所有这些活动都有助于提高社会的历史知识水平。但是,公共历史的倡导者有时会忽略其在自由民主社会中最关键的功能:传播关于重大或争议性公共议题的历史视角。

One of those implications is to develop channels through which a wider public can be addressed. If some (at least) of historians’ work touches on questions of topical interest, they surely have an obligation to write for a readership that goes well beyond their academic peers and their students; they should engage in public history. Thirty years ago this was an unfamiliar concept. It is now well understood, but with a somewhat broader definition than the context in which I am using it here. Public history is an umbrella term to cover the varied ways in which historians make a public impact. The best known of these is the advisory work that scholars carry out for heritage institutions, particularly museums. ‘Public history’ is also sufficiently elastic to include both community projects (working with local history groups, for example) and policy advice for government departments. All these activities help to raise the profile of the profession with the public; all of them contribute to the level of historical knowledge in society. But advocates of public history sometimes lose sight of what, in a liberal democracy, is its most critical function: disseminating historical perspective on weighty or contentious public issues.

奇美拉

chimera

想象的产物,一种幻觉。

A creature of the imagination, an illusion.

极少数情况下,法庭诉讼能够提供这样的途径。2000年,大屠杀的历史真实性受到了考验。当时,一位著名的“修正主义”历史学家大卫·欧文声称,美国学者黛博拉·利普斯塔特及其出版商企鹅出版社诽谤他,称他为“否认大屠杀者”,压制并歪曲了历史文献。为了反驳这些指控,辩方需要证明欧文在使用证据时存在不诚实行为,并且他否认的历史事件确实发生过。因此,专业历史学家的观点与律师的论点同样重要。一位名叫理查德·埃文斯的历史学家受聘专门调查欧文研究程序的有效性,追溯其言论的依据来源。法庭在三个月的时间里听取了大量此类证据。这份长达350页的判决书对欧文来说是一次毫无争议的失败:他被认定藐视公认的研究方法,并篡改证据以迎合其政治偏见。此案不仅削弱了否认大屠杀的可信度,也表明了专业历史学家的工作至关重要——过去的一些事件可以被确凿无疑地证实,而社会也与维护学术标准息息相关。39

Very occasionally a court case provides the means of doing so. In 2000 the historicity of the Holocaust was put to the test when a leading ‘revisionist’ historian, David Irving, claimed that Deborah Lipstadt, an American academic, and her publisher, Penguin Books, had libelled him by describing him as a ‘Holocaust denier’ who suppressed and distorted the documentary record. In order to rebut the charges, the defence needed to prove both that Irving was dishonest in his use of evidence, and that the historical events which he denied had actually taken place. As a result, the views of professional historians were as central to the case as the arguments of legal counsel. One historian, Richard Evans, was retained specifically to investigate the validity of Irving’s research procedures by tracing his statements back to the sources on which they were purportedly based. For three months the court heard a mountain of evidence of this kind. The verdict, delivered in a 350-page judgment, was an unequivocal defeat for Irving: he was found to have flouted accepted research methods and to have manipulated the evidence to suit his political prejudices. The case not only diminished the credibility of Holocaust denial; it also showed that what professional historians do matters – that some events in the past can be authenticated beyond reasonable doubt, and that society has a vested interest in the maintenance of scholarly standards.39

除了此类备受瞩目的事件之外,历史学家还通过为普通读者撰写书籍来履行其公共历史职责,这些书籍为时事提供批判性和信息丰富的视角。最有前景的是“历史与政策”网站,因为它体现了持续的投入。该网站成立于2002年,旨在为政策制定者和公众提供时事历史研究的窗口。 40该网站目前已发表了六十多篇文章。其中大多数文章从历史角度探讨社会问题,例如警务、青少年犯罪、女孩的学业表现等等;少数文章则涉及伊拉克战争等国际议题。这些文章的格式——最多4000字且不加脚注——曾被指责为降低学术水平。但如果历史学家……为了履行社会义务并接触公众,历史学家必须相应地调整其表达方式。将学术话语惯例视为不可更改的规则,无疑会将历史学家与公众隔绝开来。

Alongside a high-profile event of this kind, historians fulfil their public history brief by writing for a lay readership books that bring a critical and informed perspective to current affairs. Most promising – because it testifies to an ongoing commitment – is the History and Policy website, founded in 2002 as a window of topical historical research aimed at policy-makers and the general public.40 It has now posted over sixty papers. The majority put forward a historical perspective on social issues – policing, adolescent crime, girls’ performance in school, and so on; a smaller number engage with international topics like the Iraq war. The format of these papers – a maximum of 4,000 words and no footnotes – has drawn allegations of dumbing down. But if historians are to fulfil their social obligations and reach a public audience, they have to modify their mode of presentation accordingly. Treating the conventions of academic discourse as non-negotiable is a sure way of cutting off historians from their public audience.

对当代史的需要

The need for contemporary history

公共历史的一个含义是,近代史对历史学家有着重要的意义。这属于当代史的范畴,通常被定义为人们记忆犹新的时期(一个常用的切入点是1989-1992年冷战结束)。有人认为,当今的学者与这一时期的事件联系过于紧密,难以保持足够的客观性,而且由于难以获取机密档案(见第四章),他们的研究也受到限制。尽管历史学家无法做到尽善尽美,但他们必须尽力而为。因为人们最常从近代史中汲取历史类比和预测,而他们对近代史的了解必须建立在坚实的基础上,才能避免犯下严重的错误。近代史也常常成为粗俗神话滋生的温床——当这些神话的可信度没有受到学术研究的质疑时,它们就更具影响力。因此,学术界忽视当代史会带来危险的后果。

One implication of public history is that the recent past has a strong claim on historians. This is the province of contemporary history, usually defined as the period within living memory (a favoured starting point is the end of the Cold War in 1989–92). It can be argued that scholars today are too close to the events of this period to achieve sufficient detachment, and that they are further handicapped by their limited access to confidential records (see Chapter 4). But although the job cannot be done as well as historians would like, it is important that they do it to the best of their ability. For it is the recent past on which people draw most for historical analogies and predictions, and their knowledge of it needs to be soundly based if they are to avoid serious error. The recent past has also often proved a fertile breeding ground for crude myths – all the more powerful when their credibility is not contested by scholarly work. Academic neglect of contemporary history therefore has dangerous consequences.

六年级

VI

这是一门文化学科,还是一门社会科学?

A cultural subject, or a social science?

本章的论点可以简要概括为将历史置于其在各学科领域的邻近学科背景下进行考察。传统上,历史与文学和艺术研究一起被视为人文学科之一。这些学科的基本前提是,人类的思想和行为本身就具有内在的趣味性和持久的价值,而与任何实际意义无关。对过去事件和氛围的重现,与对艺术或文学作品中所表达的思想的重现一样,都具有吸引我们注意力的必要性。历史学家如同文学评论家和艺术史学家一样,是文化遗产的守护者,而对文化遗产的熟悉能够帮助我们深入了解人类的生存状态——这是一种提升自我认知和对他人的同理心的途径。从这个意义上讲,用科布的话来说,历史是……“一个文化课题,本身就很有启发性” 41,任何历史重建的尝试都是值得做的。

The argument of this chapter can be briefly summed up by situating history in the context of its neighbours among the academic disciplines. Traditionally history has been counted, along with literary and artistic studies, as one of the humanities. The fundamental premise of these disciplines is that what mankind has thought and done has an intrinsic interest and a lasting value irrespective of any practical implications. The re-creation of episodes and ambiences in the past has the same kind of claim on our attention as the recreation of the thought expressed in a work of art or literature. The historian, like the literary critic and art historian, is a guardian of our cultural heritage, and familiarity with that heritage offers insight into the human condition – a means to heightened self-awareness and empathy with others. In this sense history is, in Cobb’s phrase, ‘a cultural subject, enriching in itself’41 and any venture in historical reconstruction is worth doing.

相比之下,社会科学的地位源于其提供实践指导的承诺。经济学家和社会学家力求理解经济和社会的运作机制,以便为当前问题提出解决方案,正如科学家提供征服自然世界的方法一样。那些相信历史学具有实践功能的历史学家,通常会将其与人文学科区分开来,并将其置于社会科学的行列。E·H·卡尔在其著作《何谓历史?》(1961)中就采用了这种观点:

By contrast the social sciences owe their position to their promise of practical guidance. Economists and sociologists seek to understand the workings of economy and society with a view to prescribing solutions to current problems, just as scientists offer the means of mastering the natural world. Historians who believe in their subject’s practical functions habitually distance it from the humanities and place it alongside the social sciences. E.H. Carr did so in What is History? (1961):

科学家、社会科学家和历史学家都在从事同一研究的不同分支:研究人与环境的关系,研究人对环境的影响以及环境对人的影响。研究的目标是一致的:增进人类对环境的理解和掌控。42

Scientists, social scientists, and historians are all engaged in different branches of the same study: the study of man and his environment, of the effects of man on his environment and of his environment on man. The object of the study is the same: to increase man’s understanding of, and mastery over, his environment.42

从这个角度来看,历史重现的价值主要在于作为历史解释的先决条件,而重要的解释类型是那些与社会、经济和政治问题相关的解释。

On this reading, historical re-creation has value primarily as a preliminary to historical explanation, and the kinds of explanation that matter are those which relate to questions of social, economic and political concern.

在本次讨论中,我着重强调了历史的实用性,因为这方面一直受到许多专业历史学家的强烈抵制。但事实是,如果将历史定义为人文科学或社会科学,就等于否定了其本质的大部分。人们常常犯的错误是坚持将历史归类为其中一门学科,而排斥另一门学科。历史是一门混合学科,其无穷的魅力和复杂性恰恰源于它跨越了人文与社会科学的界限。如果历史研究要保持其全部活力,就必须继续承认这种核心的矛盾性,无论这会在逻辑连贯性方面造成多大的损失。“为历史而研究”并非仅仅是古物研究。对逝去时代的沉思能够提升我们的人类认知,而历史的重现也始终能够激发人们的想象力,为作者和读者提供身临其境的体验。与此同时,历史学家也肩负着更为实际的职责,他们所教授的历史,无论是面向中小学生还是通过媒体面向更广泛的公众,都需要体现出对这一职责的深刻认识。如此一来,历史教育便能同时实现多重目标:它能训练思维,拓展视野,并为我们这个时代一些最紧迫的问题提供亟需的视角。

In this discussion I have given pride of place to the practical uses of history because these continue to arouse such strong resistance among many professional historians. But the truth is that history cannot be defined as either a humanity or a social science without denying a large part of its nature. The mistake that is so often made is to insist that history be categorized as one to the exclusion of the other. History is a hybrid discipline which owes its endless fascination and its complexity to the fact that it straddles the two. If the study of history is to retain its full vitality, this central ambivalence must continue to be recognized, whatever the cost in logical coherence. The study of history ‘for its own sake’ is not mere antiquarianism. Our human awareness is enhanced by the contemplation of vanished eras, and historical re-creation will always exercise a hold over the imagination, offering as it does vicarious experience to writer and reader alike. At the same time, historians also have a more practical role to perform, and the history that they teach, whether to students in schools and colleges or through the media to the wider public, needs to be informed by an awareness of this role. In this way a historical education achieves a number of goals at once: it trains the mind, enlarges the sympathies and provides a much-needed perspective on some of the most pressing problems of our time.

马克思主义与英国革命

Marxism and the English Revolution

马克思主义,即卡尔·马克思(1818-1883)的哲学思想,是十九世纪和二十世纪最具影响力的政治和思想运动之一。马克思认为,整个人类历史都可以用辩证法来解释,即不同社会阶级为争夺主要经济生产资料的控制权而进行的冲突。这种冲突导致了从封建主义到资本主义,再从资本主义到共产主义社会的一系列阶段性发展,在共产主义社会中,工人享有其劳动成果。英国革命(1642-1649)多年来一直被理解为国王与议会之间争夺权力的冲突。然而,二十世纪的马克思主义历史学家,特别是克里斯托弗·希尔(1912-2003),则以更为激进的视角看待这场战争,认为它是一次在平等和个人自由原则下建立新社会的尝试。从这个意义上讲,它与后来的法国和俄国革命一样,构成了一场英国革命,标志着权力从贵族向资产阶级乃至工人阶级的转变。

Marxism, the philosophy of Karl Marx (1818–83), was one of the most influential political and intellectual movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Marx held that all human history can be explained in terms of dialectic, the conflict between different social classes for control of the main means of economic production. This produces a succession of stages from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to a communist society, in which workers enjoy the benefits of their own labour. The English Civil Wars (1642–9) were for many years understood essentially as a conflict for authority between king and Parliament. Marxist historians working in the twentieth century, notably Christopher Hill (1912–2003), saw it in much more radical terms, as an attempt to create a new society on principles of equality and individual liberty. In this sense it constitutes an English Revolution in the same way as the later revolutions in France and Russia, as a shift from aristocratic to bourgeois and even working-class hegemony.

复兴

Renaissance

文艺复兴是十五世纪欧洲的一场文化和思想运动,起源于意大利,最终传播到法国、德国、荷兰和英国。它从古希腊和古罗马的艺术和著作中汲取灵感。艺术家们尝试运用透视法和景深,雕塑家们则创作出栩栩如生的人物和动物雕塑。文艺复兴时期的作家们探索希腊哲学,并试图将其思想与基督教思想融合起来。

The Renaissance was a fifteenth-century European cultural and intellectual movement which began in Italy and eventually spread to France, Germany, the Netherlands and England. It drew inspiration from new discoveries in the art and writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Artists experimented with perspective and depth, while sculptors created remarkably lifelike reproductions of human and animal forms. Renaissance writers explored Greek philosophy and sought to marry its ideas with those of Christianity.

转型:通过和平与战争

Transformation: by peace and by war

1948年,南非白人阿非利卡人政府推行了严格的种族隔离政策,即种族隔离制度。黑人抵抗运动的核心人物是身陷囹圄的非洲人国民大会领袖纳尔逊·曼德拉。到了20世纪80年代,南非似乎濒临内战边缘,但弗雷德里克·威廉·德克勒克政府的让步,特别是1990年纳尔逊·曼德拉的获释,使南非得以实现向民主的和平过渡。1994年,纳尔逊·曼德拉成为南非历史上第一位黑人总统。

In 1948 the white Afrikaaner government of South Africa imposed a policy of strict racial segregation known as apartheid. Black African resistance came to centre on the imprisoned African National Congress leader, Nelson Mandela. By the 1980s South Africa seemed close to civil war, but concessions by the government of F.W. de Klerk, and especially the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990, enabled the country to undergo a remarkable peaceful transition to democracy. In 1994 Nelson Mandela became the first black President of South Africa.

十九世纪的德国则呈现出截然不同的景象。当时的德国由众多独立的邦国组成。民族主义者希望将各邦国合并为一个统一的德意志帝国,但奥地利作为德意志最大、最强大的邦国,构成了一个难题。部分原因是奥地利自身也拥有一个庞大的非德意志帝国,部分原因是奥地利长期以来一直统治着德国,不太可能欢迎一个独立的德意志大国的出现。最终,1871年,德国在好战的北德意志王国普鲁士的领导下统一为一个帝国;奥地利及其帝国被排除在外。

Nineteenth-century Germany presents a contrasting example. Germany consisted of a large number of separate states. German nationalists wanted to amalgamate them into a single, unified German empire, but Austria, the largest and most powerful German state, presented a problem, partly because it had a large non-German empire of its own, and partly because it had long dominated Germany and was unlikely to welcome the creation of a large, independent German state. In the event, in 1871 Germany was united into a single empire under the leadership of the militaristic north German kingdom of Prussia; Austria and its empire were excluded.

延伸阅读

Further reading

John Tosh《历史为何重要》,帕尔格雷夫·麦克米伦出版社,2008 年。

John Tosh, Why History Matters, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Gordon Connell-SmithHowell A. Lloyd《历史的相关性》,Heinemann 出版社,1972 年。

Gordon Connell-Smith & Howell A. Lloyd, The Relevance of History, Heinemann, 1972.

贝弗利·索斯盖特《为什么要研究历史?古代、现代和后现代的动机》,劳特利奇出版社,2000 年。

Beverley Southgate, Why Bother With History? Ancient, Modern and Postmodern Motivations, Routledge, 2000.

Jeremy Black《运用历史》,Arnold出版社,2005年。

Jeremy Black, Using History, Arnold, 2005.

Michael Howard《历史的教训》,牛津大学出版社,1989 年。

Michael Howard, The Lessons of History, Oxford University Press, 1989.

埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆《论历史》,魏登菲尔德和尼科尔森出版社,1997年。

Eric Hobsbawm, On History, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997.

Peter Mandler《历史与国家生活》,简介,2002 年。

Peter Mandler, History and National Life, Profile, 2002.

马克·费罗《历史的运用与滥用》,劳特利奇和凯根·保罗出版社,1984年。

Marc Ferro, The Use and Abuse of History, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984.

Raphael Samuel《岛屿故事:解构英国》,Verso出版社,1998年。

Raphael Samuel, Island Stories: Unravelling Britain, Verso, 1998.

玛格丽特·麦克米伦《历史的用途与滥用》,Profile出版社,2009年。

Margaret Macmillan, The Uses and Abuses of History, Profile, 2009.

Richard E. NeustadtErnest R. May《时间中的思考:历史对决策者的用途》,自由出版社,1986 年。

Richard E. Neustadt & Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers, Free Press, 1986.

Stuart Macintyre(编),《历史之战》,墨尔本大学出版社,2001 年。

Stuart Macintyre (ed.), The History Wars, Melbourne University Press, 2001.

笔记

Notes

  1  弗朗西斯·福山,《历史的终结与最后的人》,哈米什·汉密尔顿出版社,1992年。

  1  Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, Hamish Hamilton, 1992.

  2   AJP Taylor,《按时间表进行的战争:第一次世界大战是如何开始的》,麦克唐纳出版社,1969 年,第 45 页;理查德·科布,《第二身份》,牛津大学出版社,1969 年,第 47 页。

  2  A.J.P. Taylor, War by Timetable: How the First World War Began, Macdonald, 1969, p. 45; Richard Cobb, A Second Identity, Oxford University press, 1969, p. 47.

  3  George L. Mosse,《人的形象:现代男性气质的创造》,牛津大学出版社,1996 年,第 8 章

  3  George L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity, Oxford University Press, 1996, ch. 8.

  4  对 NZ Davis 的采访,见 Henry Abelove 等人(编),《历史的愿景》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,1984 年,第 114-15 页。

  4  Interview with N.Z. Davis in Henry Abelove et al. (eds), Visions of History, Manchester University Press, 1984, pp. 114–15.

  5   Christopher Hill,《十七世纪英国的变革与延续》,魏登菲尔德和尼科尔森出版社,1974 年,第 284 页。

  5  Christopher Hill, Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century England, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974, p. 284.

  6   Peter Laslett,《早期几代人的家庭生活与非法爱情》,剑桥,1977 年,第 181 页。

  6  Peter Laslett, Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations, Cambridge, 1977, p. 181.

  7   Pat Thane,《英国历史上的老年:过去的经验,现在的问题》,牛津大学出版社,2000 年。

  7  Pat Thane, Old Age in English History: Past Experiences, Present Issues, Oxford University Press, 2000.

  8  昆汀·斯金纳,《思想史中的意义与理解》,《历史与理论》 ,第八卷,1969 年,第 53 页。

  8  Quentin Skinner, ‘Meaning and understanding in the history of ideas’, History & Theory, VIII, 1969, p. 53.

  9   James Joll,《1870 年以来的欧洲》,企鹅出版社,1976 年,第 xii 页。

  9  James Joll, Europe Since 1870, Penguin, 1976, p. xii.

10   Eric Hobsbawm,《论历史》,Weidenfeld & Nicolson 出版社,1997 年,第 27 页。

10  Eric Hobsbawm, On History, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997, p. 27.

11   Gordon Connell-Smith 和 Howell A. Lloyd,《历史的相关性》,Heinemann 出版社,1972 年,第 29-31 页,第 123 页。

11  Gordon Connell-Smith and Howell A. Lloyd, The Relevance of History, Heinemann, 1972, pp. 29–31, 123.

12   WS Churchill,《马尔伯勒:他的一生和时代》,4 卷,哈拉普出版社,1933-8 年;Roy Jenkins,《阿斯奎斯》,柯林斯出版社,1964 年。

12  W.S. Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times, 4 vols, Harrap, 1933–8; Roy Jenkins, Asquith, Collins, 1964.

13   Francesco Guicciardini,《文艺复兴时期政治家的格言和反思》(Ricordi),Harper & Row,1965 年,第 69 页。

13  Francesco Guicciardini, Maxims and Reflections of a Renaissance Statesman (Ricordi), Harper & Row, 1965, p. 69.

14  例如,参见 Richard E. Neustadt 和 Ernest R. May 合著的《时间思考:历史对决策者的用途》,自由出版社,1986 年;Paul Kennedy 著的《大国的兴衰》,Unwin Hyman 出版社,1988 年。

14  See, for example, Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers, Free Press, 1986; Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Unwin Hyman, 1988.

15   David H. Fischer,《历史学家的谬误》,Routledge & Kegan Paul,1971 年,第 9 章

15  David H. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971, ch. 9.

16  霍布斯鲍姆,《历史论》,第 29、233 页。

16  Hobsbawm, On History, pp. 29, 233.

17   EH Carr,《什么是历史?》第2版,企鹅出版社,1987年,第69页。

17  E.H. Carr, What is History? 2nd edn, Penguin, 1987, p. 69.

18  这些假设是唐纳德·德努恩 (Donald Denoon) 的《1800 年以来的南非》(Southern Africa Since 1800 , Longman, 1972) 以及当时许多其他著作的基础。

18  These assumptions underpinned Donald Denoon, Southern Africa Since 1800, Longman, 1972, and many other texts of the time.

19   Mary Lyndon Shanley,《维多利亚时代英国的女权主义、婚姻与法律,1850-1895》,普林斯顿,1989 年。

19  Mary Lyndon Shanley, Feminism, Marriage and the Law in Victorian England, 1850–1895, Princeton, 1989.

20   Michael Anderson,《家庭史的相关性》,载于 Chris Harris(编),《家庭社会学》,基尔,1980 年。

20  Michael Anderson, ‘The relevance of family history’, in Chris Harris (ed.), The Sociology of the Family, Keele, 1980.

21   Linda Colley,《英国人:塑造民族,1707–1837》,耶鲁大学出版社,1992 年;Raphael Samuel,《记忆剧场》,第二卷:岛屿故事:解开英国的谜团》,Verso 出版社,1998 年,第 41–73 页。

21  Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837, Yale University Press, 1992; Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory, vol. II: Island Stories: Unravelling Britain, Verso, 1998, pp. 41–73.

22 本  尼迪克特·安德森,《想象的共同体》,Verso出版社,1983年。

22  Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Verso, 1983.

23   Paul Gilroy,《黑人大西洋:现代性和双重意识》,Verso出版社,1993年。

23  Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, Verso, 1993.

24  艾米·路易丝·埃里克森,《早期现代女性与财产》英格兰,剑桥大学出版社,1993 年;克莱尔·米奇利,《反对奴隶制的妇女》,劳特利奇出版社,1992 年。

24  Amy Louise Erickson, Women and Property in Early Modern England, Cambridge University Press, 1993; Clare Midgley, Women Against Slavery, Routledge, 1992.

25  威廉·科贝特,《给年轻人的建议》,彼得·戴维斯出版社,1926 年,第 176 页。

25  William Cobbett, Advice to Young Men, Peter Davies, 1926, p. 176.

26   John Tosh,《男人的地位:维多利亚时代英国的男性气质与中产阶级家庭》,耶鲁大学出版社,1999 年。

26  John Tosh, A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England, Yale University Press, 1999.

27  有关入门选集,请参阅 P. Rabinow (编), 《福柯读本》 ,Pantheon 出版社,1984 年。

27  For an introductory selection, see P. Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader, Pantheon, 1984.

28   Michael Oakeshott,《政治中的理性主义及其他论文》,Methuen出版社,1962年,第165页。

28  Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, Methuen, 1962, p. 165.

29   GR Elton,“对大学历史的再思考”,《历史》LIV,1969 年,第 66 页。另见他的《历史的实践》,Fontana,1969 年,第 66-68 页。

29  G.R. Elton, ‘Second thoughts on history at the universities’, History, LIV, 1969, p. 66. See also his The Practice of History, Fontana, 1969, pp. 66–8.

30   VH Galbraith,载于 RCK Ensor 等人(编),《我们为何学习历史》,历史协会,1944 年,第 7 页;另见其著作《历史研究导论》,CA Watts,1964 年,第 59-61 页。

30  V.H. Galbraith, in R.C.K. Ensor et al. (eds), Why We Study History, Historical Association, 1944, p. 7; see also his An Introduction to the Study of History, C.A. Watts, 1964, pp. 59–61.

31   Peter Mandler,《历史与国家生活》,Profile出版社,2002年,第10页。

31  Peter Mandler, History and National Life, Profile, 2002, p. 10.

32   Richard Cobb,《第二身份》,牛津大学出版社,1969 年,第 47 页。

32  Richard Cobb, A Second Identity, Oxford University Press, 1969, p. 47.

33   Jeff Guy,《祖鲁王国的毁灭》,朗文出版​​社,1979 年。

33  Jeff Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom, Longman, 1979.

34   David Cannadine,《英国历史:过去、现在和未来?》,《过去与现在》第 116 卷,1987 年,第 180 页。

34  David Cannadine, ‘British history: past, present – and future?’, Past & Present, cxvi, 1987, p. 180.

35  例如,参见 GR Elton,《回归本质》,剑桥大学出版社,1990 年,第 84-87 页。

35  See, for example, G.R. Elton, Return to Essentials, Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 84–7.

36  参见 WG Hoskins,《英国景观的形成》,企鹅出版社,1970 年。

36  See W.G. Hoskins, The Making of the English Landscape, Penguin, 1970.

37   Harold James,载于 Pat Hudson(编),《鲜活的经济和社会史》,经济史学会,2001 年,第 166 页。

37  Harold James, in Pat Hudson (ed.), Living Economic and Social History, Economic History Society, 2001, p. 166.

38   Geoffrey Barraclough,《变化世界中的历史》,Blackwell,1955 年,第 24-25 页。

38  Geoffrey Barraclough, History in a Changing World, Blackwell, 1955, pp. 24–5.

39  理查德·埃文斯,《说谎:历史、大屠杀和大卫·欧文审判》,基础书籍出版社,2001 年。

39  Richard Evans, Telling Lies: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial, Basic Books, 2001.

40   www.historyandpolicy.org

40  www.historyandpolicy.org

41   Richard Cobb,《场所感》,Duckworth出版社,1975年,第4页。

41  Richard Cobb, A Sense of Place, Duckworth, 1975, p. 4.

42  卡尔,《什么是历史?》第 86 页。

42  Carr, What is History? p. 86.

第三章

Chapter Three

绘制该领域地图

Mapping the field

历史学生接触到的大部分内容都与政治事件有关,但这远非历史学家兴趣或关注点的全部。自维多利亚时代宪政史鼎盛时期以来,历史学家的研究范围已大大扩展。如今,人类思想和活动的任何方面都已纳入历史研究的范畴。经济、社会、思维方式和文化都在课程中占有一席之地。本章将描述并归纳这种丰富的历史研究内容。

Much of the history students encounter is concerned with political events, but that is far from the limit of the historian’s interest or concerns. Historians have greatly widened the range of their studies since the heyday of Victorian constitutional history. Today no aspect of human thought and activity is excluded from the scope of historical study. Economy, society, mentality and culture all have their place in the curriculum. This chapter describes and classifies this richness.

W无论历史研究是出于实用目的还是出于其作为文化资源的内在价值,几乎不可能对其范围加以界定。如果将历史定义为对人类整个过去历史的研究,其影响将是极其深远的;即使我们将这一定义限定于有文字记载的时期和地点,其影响也仅略微减弱。所有历史都值得我们关注,但要理解历史,就需要我们对研究过去时可能采用的各种方法进行分类。几乎所有历史学家都接受某种定义性的标签;即使是那些自称为世界历史学家或全球历史学家的人,也并非声称自己无所不知,而是以牺牲其他众多视角为代价,突出了某一特定视角。目前存在多种不同的标签体系。长期以来,历史学家都以他们研究的时期来界定自己的专业领域,例如“中世纪史学家”、“早期现代史学家”或“当代史学家”。实际上,他们公认的专业领域往往更为局限——中世纪史学家的研究范围可能仅限于一个世纪,而十九世纪史学家的研究范围通常不超过十年。或者二十世纪。此外,还有按地域划分的专业化。特定时期通常只针对一个国家或地区进行研究。例如,研究十七世纪英国革命的专家自然会对西欧那些与法国和荷兰一样,在同一时期经历了政治危机的国家感兴趣,但他/她对这些国家的了解可能仅限于阅读二手文献——遗憾的是,在很多情况下,这些文献仅限于英语和另一种欧洲语言的文献。那些在多个国家或时期拥有第一手研究经验的历史学家只占少数(见下文,第160页)。

Whether history is studied for practical purposes or on account of its intrinsic value as a cultural resource, it is almost impossible to set limits on its scope. The implications are truly formidable if history is defined as the study of the entire past of humankind; they are only marginally less so if we limit this definition to the periods and places for which there is a written record. All history has some claim on our attention, but making sense of history demands that we categorize the very wide range of approaches that can be taken in studying the past. Nearly all historians accept a defining label; even those who call themselves world historians or global historians are not claiming omniscience, but are foregrounding one perspective at the expense of a great many others. Several labelling schemes are in use. Historians have for a long time identified themselves by the period they study, as for example, ‘medievalists’, ‘early modernists’ or ‘contemporary historians’, and in practice the period for which they have an acknowledged expertise is likely to be limited still further – to a century perhaps in the case of a medievalist, and often no more than a decade in the case of a specialist in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. Then there is specialization by locality. Particular periods are generally studied in relation to one country or region only. The specialist in the English Revolution of the seventeenth century, for example, would naturally be interested in those countries of Western Europe which, like France and the Netherlands, experienced their own political crises at the same time, but his or her knowledge of them would probably not be founded on anything more than a reading of the secondary literature – and regrettably in many cases only the literature in English and one other European language. Those historians with firsthand research experience in more than one country or period are a small minority (see below, pp. 160).

近代早期

early modern

通常指从文艺复兴时期到法国大革命和工业革命时期,大致相当于英国历史上的都铎王朝、斯图亚特王朝和汉诺威王朝时期。

Usually taken to mean the period from the Renaissance to the French and Industrial Revolutions, equating roughly to the Tudor, Stuart and Hanoverian periods in English history.

除了时间和地点上的专业化之外,历史研究还存在主题上的专业化。现代历史学术研究在资料较为完善的时期和国家都能取得相对稳定的成果,但其主题的选择却更容易受到时代潮流的影响。社会相关性的诉求、新研究技术的出现以及其他学科的理论见解都会影响历史学家,促使他们决定哪些历史方面应该优先研究。因此,与选择时期或国家相比,选择主题更能清晰地反映历史研究的实际内容。同时,由于过去五十年间历史主题的范围已大大扩展,选择主题也是展现当代学术研究丰富性的最佳途径。我将从历史研究的“老派”分支入手,尽管它如今已不再是主流分支。

In addition to the specialization of time and place, there is also the specialization of theme. Whereas modern historical scholarship achieves a more or less steady output for all the periods and countries that are reasonably well documented, its choice of theme is much more subject to changing fashion. The claims of social relevance, the development of new techniques of research, and the theoretical insights of other disciplines all influence historians in determining which aspects of the past should enjoy research priority. For these reasons, choice of theme gives a much clearer indication of the actual content of historical enquiry than does choice of period or country. It is also much the best way of conveying the richness of contemporary scholarship, since the range of historical themes has greatly expanded over the past fifty years. I begin with what might be regarded as the senior branch of historical study, though it is no longer the dominant one.

I

政治史

Political history

政治史通常被定义为研究过去所有与社会权力正式组织相关的方面,对于有记载历史的大多数人类社会而言,这通常意味着国家。它包括国家的制度组织、各派系和政党为争夺国家控制权而进行的竞争、国家推行的政策以及国家之间的关系。对许多人来说,历史的范围似乎仅限于这些主题,这主要是因为他们在学校里学到的就是这些。近年来,无论是……国家课程和电视节目反映了更广泛的兴趣领域。但政治史并未失去其魅力,它自古以来就在历史研究中占据核心地位。

Political history is conventionally defined as the study of all those aspects of the past that have to do with the formal organization of power in society, which for the majority of human societies in recorded history means the state. It includes the institutional organization of the state, the competition of factions and parties for control over the state, the policies enforced by the state, and the relations between states. To many people, the scope of history would appear to be exhausted by these topics, mainly because that was what they had studied in school. In recent years both the National Curriculum and television programmes have reflected a broader range of interest. But political history has not lost its appeal, and it capitalizes on its central place in historical scholarship since ancient times.

这种传统主导地位的原因显而易见。历史上,国家本身参与历史书写的程度远超其他任何文学活动。一方面,那些掌握政治权力的人会从过去寻求指导,以更好地实现自身目标。与此同时,政治精英们也热衷于向公众推广一种能够使其自身在政治体系中的地位合法化的历史版本,他们要么强调过去的成就,要么论证其执政所依据的宪法的古老性。此外,政治史一直以来都拥有大量的普通读者。政治家、国家或帝国的兴衰都适合以宏大的方式进行戏剧化的描写。政治权力令人陶醉,对于那些无法亲自行使权力的人来说,最好的替代方式莫过于在才华横溢的作家笔下体验这种权力。迎合这种大众偏好所带来的后果早已令人痛心疾首。英国农学家亚瑟·杨以其对法国大革命前夕乡村的描述而闻名,他直言不讳:

The reasons for this traditional dominance are clear enough. Historically the state itself has been much more directly involved in the writing of history than with any other literary activity. On the one hand, those who exercised political power looked to the past for guidance as to how best to achieve their ends. At the same time, political elites had an interest in promoting for public consumption a version of history that legitimized their own position in the body politic, either by emphasizing their past achievements, or by demonstrating the antiquity of the constitution under which they held office. Moreover, political history has always found an avid lay readership. The rise and fall of statesmen and of nations or empires lends itself to dramatic treatment in the grand manner. Political power is intoxicating, and for those who cannot exercise it themselves, the next best thing is to enjoy it vicariously in the pages of a gifted writer. The consequences of pandering to this popular preference have long been deplored. Arthur Young, the English agronomist famous for his descriptions of the French countryside on the eve of the Revolution, was blunt:

对于一个对哲学探究毫无兴趣的人来说,阅读近代史通常是最令人痛苦的事情:人们饱受一群被称为征服者、英雄和伟大将领的令人厌恶之人的所作所为的折磨;我们不得不艰难地翻阅满是军事细节的篇章;但当你想要了解农业、商业和工业的发展,以及它们在不同时代和国家之间的相互影响时……却一片空白

To a mind that has the least turn after philosophical inquiry, reading modern history is generally the most tormenting employment that a man can have: one is plagued with the actions of a detestable set of men called conquerors, heroes, and great generals; and we wade through pages loaded with military details; but when you want to know the progress of agriculture, or commerce, and industry, their effect in different ages and nations on each other … all is a blank.1

普通读者

lay readership

面向学术历史专业以外的读者。

Readers outside the academic historical profession.

亚瑟·杨(1741–1820)

Arthur Young (1741–1820)

这位英国作家兼农业学家详细记录了他游历英格兰、爱尔兰和法国农业区的见闻。1787年至1790年间,他每年都访问法国,因此,他的游记为历史学家提供了一位睿智博学的外来观察者对法国大革命前夕农村社会状况的宝贵资料。

English writer and agriculturalist, and author of detailed accounts of tours through the agricultural areas of England, Ireland and France. He visited France each year between 1787 and 1790, and his accounts therefore provide historians with an invaluable account, from an intelligent and informed outside observer, of the state of French rural society on the eve of the Revolution.

动荡时代的政治史

Political history in turbulent times

事实上,在十八世纪启蒙运动时期,一种“哲学”思潮的兴起远比杨格所认为的更为明显。伏尔泰的历史著作涵盖了文化和社会的方方面面,就连吉本的研究也并非局限于罗马帝国的王朝更迭和军事兴衰。然而,十九世纪历史研究的革命性变革却极大地强化了对治国之道、派系斗争和战争的传统关注。德国历史主义与以黑格尔为代表的政治思想流派紧密相连,而黑格尔又赋予了历史研究以……国家的概念认为,国家拥有超越其臣民物质利益的道德和精神力量;由此可见,国家是历史变革的主要推动者。同样,当时激发了大量历史著作的民族主义,导致人们更加关注列强之间的竞争以及被边缘化的民族争取政治自决的斗争。兰克写道:“现代精神……只能通过政治手段运作”,几乎没有历史学家会对此提出异议。 2维多利亚时代的历史学家E.A.弗里曼则以更简洁的方式表达了这一观点:“历史是过去的政治”。 3 受兰克思想影响的新一代大学教授本质上都是政治史学家。

In fact, during the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, a ‘philosophical’ turn of mind was rather more evident than Young allowed for. Voltaire’s historical works ranged over the whole field of culture and society, and even Gibbon did not confine himself to the dynastic and military fortunes of the Roman Empire. But the nineteenth-century revolution in historical studies greatly reinforced the traditional preoccupation with statecraft, faction and war. German historicism was closely associated with a school of political thought, best represented by Hegel, which endowed the concept of the state with a moral and spiritual force beyond the material interests of its subjects; it followed that the state was the main agent of historical change. Equally, the nationalism that inspired so much historical writing at this time led to an emphasis on the competition between the great powers and the struggles of submerged nationalities for political self-determination. Few historians would have quarrelled with Ranke when he wrote, ‘the spirit of modern times … operates only by political means’.2 The Victorian historian, E.A. Freeman, put it more simply: ‘History is past politics’.3 The new university professors in the Rankean mould were essentially political historians.

伏尔泰(1694–1778)

Voltaire (1694–1778)

弗朗索瓦·玛丽·阿鲁埃·德·伏尔泰是法国十八世纪启蒙运动时期最著名的作家之一。伏尔泰以其对当时风俗和思想的诙谐讽刺而闻名,但他同时也创作了历史著作,包括对路易十四和瑞典国王查理十二世的研究,以及一部关于牛顿物理学的论著。

François Marie Arouet de Voltaire, one of the most celebrated writers of the French eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Voltaire was best known for his witty satires on contemporary manners and ideas, but he also wrote historical works, including studies of Louis XIV and of the Swedish King Charles XII, and a treatise on Newtonian physics.

faction

一个政治团体,通常依靠庇护或个人忠诚而非党派忠诚维系在一起。

A political grouping, usually held together by patronage or personal, rather than party, loyalty.

政治史应该讲述什么?

What should political history be about?

然而,正如前文所述,政治史的含义多种多样,其内容也几乎与其他历史分支一样,受到时代潮流的影响。兰克本人主要关注的是,从文艺复兴到法国大革命这段时期,欧洲列强是如何形成各自鲜明的个性特征的。他寻求的解释与其说是这些国家内部的演变,不如说是它们之间永无休止的权力斗争。因此,兰克留下的遗产之一,便是对外交政策研究采取了高度专业化的方法。自此以后,外交史一直是历史学界的一项重要研究方向,随着历史学家们不断回应公众对了解最新战争起源的需求,其吸引力也随之周期性地增强。尤其是在第一次世界大战之后,许多此类研究带有民族主义宣传的色彩,并且过于依赖单一国家的档案资料。有时,外交史被简化为一位外交官或外交部长与另一位外交官或外交部长之间的对话记录,而对那些常常影响外交政策的更广泛因素——例如经济和军事因素、公众舆论的影响等等——却鲜有关注。如今,优秀的外交史著作着眼于最全面的国际关系,而非某个特定国家的外交。玛格丽特·麦克米伦在其著作《和平缔造者》(2001)中,对1919年《凡尔赛条约》签订前长达六个月的谈判过程进行了精辟的描述。她的叙述围绕着三位关键人物之间的激烈谈判展开:美国总统伍德罗·威尔逊、英国首相克列孟梭和英国首相克列孟梭。法国的劳合·乔治和英国的劳合·乔治。但麦克米伦指出,他们的决定不仅受到战争结束时双方兵力部署的影响,也受到各自国家民众情绪强度的影响。

Yet, as the definition given earlier would suggest, political history can mean different things, and its content has been almost as varied and as subject to fashion as any other branch of history. Ranke himself was chiefly interested in how the great powers of Europe had acquired their strongly individual characters during the period between the Renaissance and the French Revolution. He looked for explanations less to the internal evolution of those states than to the unending struggle for power between them. One of Ranke’s legacies, therefore, was a highly professional approach to the study of foreign policy. Diplomatic history has been a staple pursuit of the profession ever since, its appeal periodically reinforced as historians have responded to a public demand to understand the origins of the latest war. In the aftermath of the First World War especially, much of this work verged on nationalist propaganda and it was too heavily dependent on the archives of a single country. At times, diplomatic history has been reduced to scarcely more than a record of what one diplomat or foreign minister said to another, with little awareness of the wider influences that so often shape foreign policy – financial and military factors, the influence of public opinion, and so on. Nowadays the best diplomatic history deals with international relations in the most comprehensive sense, rather than the diplomacy of a particular nation. In her book Peacemakers (2001) Margaret Macmillan provides a masterly account of the six months of negotiation that led up to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Her account revolves around the intense negotiations between the three key players: Woodrow Wilson of the United States, Clemenceau of France, and Lloyd George of Britain. But Macmillan shows how their decisions were conditioned not only by the disposition of forces at the end of the war, but by the strength of popular feeling in their respective countries.

1919年巴黎和会上的“四巨头”:从左至右依次为:奥兰多(意大利)、劳合·乔治(英国)、克列孟梭(法国)和伍德罗·威尔逊(美国)。会议的大部分议题都是通过他们之间的会晤解决的。他们也受到与会其他众多大国的不断游说。(Getty Images/Time & Life Pictures)

The ‘Big Four’ at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919: seated left to right: Orlando (Italy), Lloyd George (Britain), Clemenceau (France) and Woodrow Wilson (United States). Most of the business of the conference was settled in meetings between them. They were subject to incessant lobbying by the many other powers represented at the conference. (Getty Images/Time & Life Pictures)

兰克的许多同时代人和追随者则更强调欧洲民族国家的内部演变,宪政史在很大程度上是他们开创的。这种强调在英国最为显著,19世纪60年代和70年代,历史学几乎完全凭借宪政史的强大影响力成为一门受人尊敬的学术学科。其核心主题当然是议会的演变,维多利亚时代的人们认为议会是英国对文明最宝贵的贡献,因此也是国家史研究的恰当焦点。英国的宪政史被视为一系列意义重大的原则冲突与渐进变革时期交替出现的过程,其历史可以追溯到中世纪早期;它被铭刻在一系列重要的国家文献(如《大宪章》等)中,这些文献需要严谨的文本研究。在斯塔布斯的三卷本《英国宪政史》(1873-1878年)出版后的五十年里,宪政史在英国享有最高的学术声望,并成为重要的学术研究领域。修正主义研究至今仍在进行。在斯塔布斯的追随者——他们大多和斯塔布斯一样是中世纪史学家——手中,这一学科被拓展至涵盖两个密切相关的专业领域:法律史和行政史。如今,法律史的研究兴趣相对较少,但随着历史学家们试图解读上个世纪西方社会政府职能和人员规模的急剧增长,行政史却展现出焕发新生的迹象。

Many of Ranke’s contemporaries and followers emphasized instead the internal evolution of the European nation-states, and constitutional history was largely their creation. This emphasis was most pronounced in Britain, where history became an academically respectable subject during the 1860s and 1870s almost entirely on the strength of constitutional history. Its central theme was of course the evolution of Parliament, considered by the Victorians to be England’s most priceless contribution to civilization, and thus the appropriate focus for a national history. England’s constitutional history was seen as a sequence of momentous conflicts of principle, alternating with periods of gradual change, stretching back to the early Middle Ages; it was enshrined in a succession of great state documents (Magna Carta and the like) which required disciplined textual study. For fifty years after the publication of Stubbs’s three-volume Constitutional History of England (1873–8), constitutional history carried the greatest academic prestige in Britain, and major revisionist work continues to be done to this day. In the hands of Stubbs’s followers – most of them medievalists, as he was – the subject was diversified to encompass two closely related special-isms: the history of law and administrative history. Legal history attracts relatively little interest today, but administrative history shows every sign of enjoying a new lease of life as historians seek to interpret the massive increase in the functions and personnel of government that has taken place in all Western societies during the last century.

政治的细微之处

The fine grain of politics

然而,若认为政治史研究仍然固守十九世纪划定的范畴,那就大错特错了。尤其在英国,对传统政治史研究形式的反感主要集中在这样一个论点上:这些研究形式都未能直接探讨政治研究的核心问题,即政治权力的获取与运用以及政治体系的日常运作。从这个角度来看,斯塔布斯传统强调宪政原则和政府的正式制度,似乎并无助益。

It would be very misleading, however, to suggest that the practice of political history remains wedded to the categories marked out in the nineteenth century. In Britain especially, reaction against the traditional forms of political history has turned on the contention that none of them directly confronts what ought to be a central issue in any study of politics, namely the acquisition and exercise of political power and the day-to-day management of political systems. From this perspective, the Stubbs tradition, with its emphasis on constitutional principles and the formal institutions of government, seems unhelpful.

这一反动浪潮中最具影响力的代言人是L.B.纳米尔,他关于十八世纪英国的著作标志着一个转折点。纳米尔感兴趣的并非当时重大的政治议题或主要政治家的仕途,而是普通议员的个人经历所揭示的政治精英的构成和选拔。在《乔治三世登基时的政治结构》(1929)及其后来的著作中,纳米尔探究了人们为何寻求下议院席位、如何获得席位以及他们在议会中的政治行为受哪些因素指导。他揭穿了政客们用来掩盖其行为的意识形态伪装(后世历史学家对此推波助澜),他们的动机和手段都难以令人信服。结果,大多数关于十八世纪英国政治的既有认知被推翻——两党制、政府官员充斥下议院以及年轻的乔治三世对宪法的攻击。纳米尔的方法很快被研究其他时期历史的历史学家所采用,在他生命的最后阶段,他将这种方法写入了官方资助的《英国议会史》中。最终将收录1485年至1901年间所有下议院议员的传记:目前已出版28卷。4

The most influential spokesman for this reaction was L.B. Namier, whose writings on eighteenth-century England marked something of a turning point. What interested Namier was not primarily the great political issues of the time or the careers of the leading statesmen, but the composition and recruitment of the political elite as revealed by the personal case-histories of ordinary MPs. In The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (1929) and later works Namier asked why men sought a seat in the Commons, how they obtained one, and what considerations guided their political conduct in the House. He cut through the ideological pretensions with which politicians clothed their behaviour (aided and abetted by later historians), and neither their motives nor their methods emerged with much credit. As a result, most of the accepted picture of eighteenth-century English politics was demolished – the two-party system, the packing of the Commons with government placemen, and the assault on the constitution by the young George III. Namier’s method was quickly taken up by historians working on other periods, and towards the end of his life he enshrined it in the officially sponsored History of Parliament, which will eventually comprise biographies of everyone who sat in the House of Commons between 1485 and 1901: twenty-eight volumes have so far been published.4

这种充分分析动机和策略的方法,使得对政治冲突心理学的研究引人入胜。但这仅仅揭示了表面现象。一旦人们认识到政治不仅关乎个人,也关乎相互竞争的经济利益和相互冲突的意识形态,那么宫廷或议会之外的更广泛的社会就变得至关重要。在革命变革时期,这一点不言而喻。当政治体制因经济或社会结构的变化而崩溃时,阶级和意识形态的维度便会显现出来。在较为稳定的政治环境下,阶级和意识形态的维度或许并不那么清晰,但它们依然存在,任何对短期政治趋势的分析都离不开对它们的理解。至少,历史学家必须了解政治精英的社会经济背景以及公众舆论的作用。与其他任何历史分支相比,政治史的生命力更依赖于与邻近学科,特别是经济史和社会史领域的密切互动。

Such an approach, in which the analysis of motive and manoeuvre is allowed full play, makes for a fascinating study in the psychology of political conflict. But it illuminates the surface only. As soon as it is conceded that politics is not only about personalities but also about the clash of competing economic interests and rival ideologies, then the wider society outside the rarified atmosphere of court or Parliament becomes critically important. This is self-evident in the case of periods of revolutionary change when the political system broke down as a result of changes in the structure of economy or society. In more stable political situations the dimensions of class and ideology may not be so clearly articulated, but they are present nonetheless, and any analysis of political trends beyond the short term demands that they be understood. At the very least, historians have to be aware of the social and economic background of the political elite and the role of public opinion. More than any other branch of history, political history depends for its vitality on a close involvement with its intellectual neighbours, and particularly with the fields of economic and social history.

法国大革命最重要的思想之一是将民族视为群体认同的中心,而非效忠于王朝统治者。民族主义通常与自由主义联系在一起,但也受到一些保守派人士的拥护。19世纪的欧洲爆发了多次革命性的民族主义起义,但意大利和德国——这两个19世纪以民族主义路线建立的国家的典型代表——其建立更多地归功于政治家的运作,而​​非革命者的功劳。民族国家是伍德罗·威尔逊总统在1919年巴黎和会上提出的民族自决政策的核心。(玛丽·埃文斯图片库)

One of the most significant ideas to come out of the French Revolution was the concept of the nation as a focus for group identity, instead of loyalty to a dynastic ruler. Nationalism was often linked to liberalism, although it was also taken up by illiberal conservatives. Nineteenth-century Europe saw a number of revolutionary nationalist risings, although Italy and Germany, the two main examples of nineteenth-century states established along nationalist lines, both owed their existence more to the manoeuvres of statesmen than they did to revolutionaries. The nation-state was at the heart of President Woodrow Wilson’s policy of national self-determination at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. (Mary Evans Picture Library)

II

精英之外的历史

History beyond the elite

毫不夸张地说,在兰克那一代人眼中,经济史和社会史并不存在。然而,到了十九世纪末,西欧和美国正经历着一场重大的经济和社会转型,而当时的历史研究显然无法解释这场转型。尽管马克思的思想在过去五十年才被大规模地应用于西方历史研究(见第八章),但他对生产资料和阶级关系的历史意义的强调,早在二十世纪初就已经在具有政治素养的人群中广为流传。此外,有组织的劳工运动和群众性社会主义政党的兴起,使得经济和社会改革问题比以往任何时候都更加迫切地被推到了政治舞台的中心。二十世纪初的发展也指向了同样的方向。对许多人来说,第一次世界大战对民族国家的理想造成了致命打击,而民族国家的兴起一直是十九世纪史学研究的重要主题;同时,世界经济反复出现的衰退和萧条也证实了需要对经济史进行更系统的理解。

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that for Ranke’s generation economic and social history did not exist. By the late nineteenth century, however, Western Europe and the United States were emerging from a major economic and social transformation which historical study as then practised was manifestly incapable of explaining. Although Marx’s thought has been rigorously applied to historical research in the West on a large scale only during the past fifty years (see Chapter 8), his emphasis on the historical significance of the means of production and of relations between classes had already gained wide currency among politically literate people by the early twentieth century. Moreover the effect of the rise of organized labour and the mass socialist parties was to push issues of economic and social reform more insistently on to the centre of the political stage than ever before. Developments in the early twentieth century pointed in the same general direction. For many, the First World War dealt a fatal blow to the ideal of the nation-state, whose rise had been the great theme of nineteenth-century historiography, while the recurrent slumps and depressions in the world economy confirmed the need for a more systematic grasp of economic history.

史学

historiography

历史写作的研究,虽然该术语有时也用来指代历史学家对某一特定主题的写作范围。

The study of the writing of history, although the term is sometimes also used to denote the range of historians’ writings on a particular theme.

世纪之交,学术史狭隘的政治视角日益受到历史学家自身的抨击。呼吁采取新的、更广泛的研究方法的宣言在多个国家发表——其中以美国最为自觉,这些宣言打着“新历史主义”的旗号。历史”。在英国,历史研究与当前社会问题之间的联系在西德尼·韦伯和比阿特丽斯·韦伯的职业生涯中尤为明显,他们是社会改革家,也是英国劳工运动的历史学家;经济史从一开始就出现在他们于 1895 年创立的伦敦政治经济学院的课程中。

Around the turn of the century the narrowly political focus of academic history came under increasing attack from historians themselves. Manifestos calling for a new and broader approach were launched in several countries – most self-consciously in the United States, where they sailed under the flag of the ‘New History’. In Britain the connection between historical study and current social issues was particularly evident in the careers of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, social reformers and historians of the British Labour movement; economic history featured from the start in the curriculum of the London School of Economics, which they founded in 1895.

西德尼(1859–1947)和比阿特丽斯(1858–1943)·韦伯

Sidney (1859–1947) and Beatrice (1858–1943) Webb

他们是1910年代和1920年代英国的社会历史学家和改革家,在社会主义的费边社和工会运动中发挥了领导作用。他们深信社会和经济史的重要性,出版了《工会主义史》,并在1895年协助创立了伦敦政治经济学院。

British social historians and reformers, prominent in the 1910s and 1920s. They took a leading role in the socialist Fabian Society and in the trade union movement. Convinced of the importance of social and economic history, they published a History of Trade Unionism and in 1895 they helped to found the London School of Economics.

向其他学科学习:年鉴学派

Learning from other disciplines: the Annales school

然而,在法国,历史研究范围的拓展及其意义得到了最充分的阐述。这要归功于中世纪史学家马克·布洛赫和十六世纪史专家吕西安·费弗尔,如今,他们的追随者在学术界的国际声望可能超过了其他任何学派。1929年,布洛赫和费弗尔创办了一份名为《社会与经济史年鉴》(Annales d'histoire sociale et économique)的历史期刊,通常简称为《年鉴》(Annales 。在创刊号中,他们不仅要求同行们采用更广阔的视角,还要意识到可以从其他学科,特别是社会科学——经济学、社会学、社会心理学和地理学(《年鉴》的历史学家们尤其热衷于此)——中汲取哪些经验。布洛赫和费弗尔承认,这些学科的学者主要关注当代问题,但他们坚持认为,只有在这些学科的帮助下,历史学家才能意识到他们可以利用史料提出哪些重要的问题。尽管早期的改革者呼吁采用跨学科方法,但年鉴学派的历史学家们却系统地将其付诸实践,并发表了大量著作,其中马克·布洛赫的《封建社会》(1940)可能是法国以外最知名的著作。基于这一基本前提,年鉴学派的历史学家们不断拓展和完善历史学的内容和方法,因此,过去五十年历史学的许多新方向都很大程度上归功于他们的贡献。与此同时,年鉴学派对传统的政治叙事方式嗤之以鼻——英国的许多经济史和社会史学家也持有同样的观点:用R.H.托尼的话来说,政治是“更严肃问题的肮脏脚手架”。 6

It was, however, in France that the implications of broadening history’s scope were most fully worked out. This was the achievement of Marc Bloch, a medievalist, and Lucien Febvre, a specialist in the sixteenth century, whose followers today probably command greater international prestige in the academic world than any other school. In 1929 Bloch and Febvre founded a historical journal called Annales d’histoire sociale et économique, usually known simply as Annales.5 In the first issue they demanded of their colleagues not just a broader approach but an awareness of what they could learn from other disciplines, especially the social sciences – economics, sociology, social psychology and geography (a particularly strong enthusiasm of the Annales historians). While conceding that the practitioners of these disciplines were primarily concerned with contemporary problems, Bloch and Febvre maintained that only with their help could historians become aware of the full range of significant questions that they could put to their sources. And whereas earlier reformers had called for an inter-disciplinary method, it was systematically put into practice by the Annales historians in a formidable corpus of publications, of which Marc Bloch’s Feudal Society (1940) is probably the best known outside France. From this basic premise, historians of the Annales school have continued to broaden and refine the content and methodology of history, with the result that many of the new directions that the discipline has taken in the past fifty years owe much to their contribution. At the same time, the Annales school heaped considerable scorn on the traditional pursuit of political narrative – a reaction that was shared by many economic and social historians in Britain: in R.H. Tawney’s words, politics was ‘the squalid scaffolding of more serious matters’.6

历史写作的范围之所以如此之广,主要是因为年鉴学派历史学家及其同时代人所采取的举措。如今历史研究领域如此广阔。经济史、社会史和文化史的蓬勃发展便是这些努力的明证。与此同时,新的专业领域不断涌现,例如全球史、环境史、身体史和书籍史,似乎没有任何领域被弃用。对历史学家研究工作的罗列很容易让人眼花缭乱,最终沦为一份杂乱无章的目录。当我们意识到某一领域的研究可能因理论方法而细分,而这些理论又可能出现在其他领域时(​​马克思主义就是一个明显的例子),这种混乱感就更加强烈了。在本章中,我将运用“场域”这一隐喻,选取三个不同的横截面进行探讨;每个横截面都由成对的对立面构成。它们共同展现了历史研究的广度,并为任何历史研究提供了一个框架。第一个横截面对比了个人与社会或大众。第二个横截面对比了物质世界与精神或文化经验。第三个横截面则将地方与全球并置,反映了历史学家所使用的截然不同的空间框架。

It is mainly because of the initiatives taken by the Annales historians and their contemporaries that the range of history writing is today so vast. The vitality of economic, social and cultural history is testimony to those efforts. Meanwhile new specialisms continue to be added, like global history, environmental history, the history of the body and the history of the book, and nothing seems to be abandoned. An inventory of what historians do can easily read like a dizzying catalogue in which all coherence is lost. The confusion is compounded when we recognize that work in one area may be divided by theoretical approaches, and these same theories may be found in other areas (Marxism being an obvious example). In this chapter I pursue the metaphor of ‘field’ by taking three different cross-sections; each is composed of paired opposites. Together they capture something of the range of historical study, and they provide a grid on which any individual historical work can be placed. The first cross-section contrasts the individual with society or the mass of the people. The second contrasts the material world with the mental or cultural aspects of experience. And the third juxtaposes the local with the global, reflecting the very different spatial frames employed by historians.

III

Biography

二十世纪涌现的新历史著作的共同之处在于它们都关注“社会”。传统的学院派历史研究因其关注少数精英和个人——外交政策的制定者、推动或抵制宪政变革的政治家以及革命运动的领袖——而受到谴责。然而,这些人物仍然吸引着学术界和大众读者的目光。自历史书写以来,历史学家就一直以传记的形式满足着这种人类的好奇心。然而,这种好奇心往往被一些与严格尊重历史真相相悖的意图所掩盖。在中世纪和文艺复兴时期,许多传记都带有明显的说教色彩,旨在将传主塑造成基督教行为或公共美德的典范。在维多利亚时代,传记的典型形式是纪念性的:对于公众人物的继承人和仰慕者来说,最合适的纪念方式是撰写一部大型的“传记”,几乎完全基于传主自己的文件(其中许多文件正是为此目的而精心保存的)。因此,传记作者往往根据传主自身的评价来评判其生平。对于更久远的历史人物,人们也同样给予了高度的敬意。只有极少数勇敢的作家才会撰写真实、不加修饰的传记。因此,维多利亚时代的传记读者面对的是一群德高望重的人物,他们的作用在于维护国家政治和知识精英的尊严。

The common factor behind the new histories that came to the fore during the twentieth century was that they were about ‘society’. The traditional conventions of academic history stood condemned for their concern with small elites and with individuals – the makers of foreign policy, the statesmen who promoted or resisted constitutional change, and the leaders of revolutionary movements. Yet such figures continued to attract both academic study and a popular readership. This human curiosity has been indulged by historians in the form of biography for as long as history has been written. It has, however, often been overlaid by intentions that are inconsistent with a strict regard for historical truth. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance many biographies were frankly didactic, designed to present the subject as a model of Christian conduct or public virtue. In Victorian times the characteristic form of biography was commemorative: for the heirs and admirers of a public figure the most fitting memorial was a large-scale ‘Life’, based almost exclusively on the subject’s own papers (many of them carefully preserved for this very purpose) and so taking the subject at his or her own valuation. Figures in the more distant past were treated hardly less reverently. Honest, ‘warts-and-all’ biography was practised by only a few brave spirits. The Victorian reader of biographies was therefore confronted by a gallery of worthies, whose role was to sustain a respect for the nation’s political and intellectual elite.

教学

didactic

具有明显的教育目的。

With an overtly educational purpose.

优缺点全都展现出来

warts-and-all

诚实,既展现优点也展现缺点。这个说法源于画家彼得·莱利爵士为奥利弗·克伦威尔所作的一幅肖像。克伦威尔脸上长了一两颗疣子,他告诉莱利,他不想要一幅虚假的奉承肖像,而是希望“如实描绘自己的一切”。

Honest, showing the bad points as well as the good. The term comes from a portrait of Oliver Cromwell by the painter Sir Peter Lely. Cromwell, who had one or two warts on his face, told Lely he did not want a falsely flattering portrait, but wanted to be painted ‘warts and all’.

对历史学家而言,传记的根本要求在于理解传主所处的历史背景。作者不仅要对相关时期有深入的了解,还要查阅所有与传主生平相关的重要文献资料——包括其对手、下属、朋友和家人的资料。简而言之,历史传记是一项艰巨的任务。然而,即使是符合现代学术要求的传记也并非没有批评者。许多历史学家认为传记在历史研究中没有严肃的地位。偏见问题不容忽视。尽管自利顿·斯特雷奇(Lytton Strachey)揭露其讽刺意味十足的著作《维多利亚时代的杰出人物》 ( Eminent Victorians,1918)中人物的弱点以来,一直存在着一种批判传记的风潮,但任何花费数年时间研究某个人物的人——斯特雷奇从未这样做过——都很难摆脱与传主的某种认同感,并且不可避免地会在某种程度上透过传主的视角来看待那个时代。此外,传记叙事倾向于对事件进行简化、线性的解读。英国现代政治史的权威专家莫里斯·考林认为,只有展现政治体制成员之间的相互关系,才能理解政治事件。他写道:“为此,……”

For historians, the essential requirement in a biography is that it understands the subject in his or her historical context. It must be written by someone who is not merely well grounded in the period in question but who has examined all the major collections of papers that have a bearing on the subject’s life – including those of adversaries and subordinates as well as friends and family. A historical biography is, in short, a major undertaking. Yet even biography that meets the requirements of modern scholarship is not without its critics. Many historians believe that it has no serious place in historical study. The problem of bias cannot be lightly disposed of. Although there has been a vogue for debunking biography ever since Lytton Strachey exposed the human frailties of his ironically named Eminent Victorians (1918), anyone who devotes years to the study of one individual – something that Strachey never did – can hardly escape some identification with the subject and will inevitably look at the period to some extent through that person’s eyes. Furthermore, biographical narrative encourages a simplified, linear interpretation of events. Maurice Cowling, a leading specialist in modern British political history, argued that political events can only be understood by showing how members of the political establishment reacted to one another. ‘For this purpose’, he wrote:

传记几乎总是具有误导性。它对(政治)体系的反映是片面的。它将人物抽象化,而人物的公共行为不应被抽象化。它暗示着不同情境之间存在线性联系。事实上,这些联系并非线性。该体系是一个循环关系:一个要素的改变会改变所有其他要素相对于其余要素的位置。7

biography is almost always misleading. Its refraction is partial in relation to the [political] system. It abstracts a man whose public action should not be abstracted. It implies linear connections between one situation and the next. In fact connections were not linear. The system was a circular relationship: a shift in one element changed the position of all the others in relation to the rest.7

很难否认,即便出于最美好的愿望,传记几乎总是会带有某种程度的扭曲,但我们也有充分的理由不去完全否定它的价值。首先,在权力集中于一人之手的政治体制中,考林的反对意见就显得苍白无力了。希特勒传记中最权威的作者伊恩·克肖曾讲述过,他最初是多么不情愿尝试撰写希特勒的传记,因为在他的作品中,他……他之前的研究主要集中于纳粹权力在德国社会中的结构。但他逐渐意识到,结构性研究方法需要“更多地反思希特勒本人——他是这一切发生的不可或缺的支点和灵感来源”。 8 其次,在另一个极端,一些并不出众的人物传记,如果资料足够丰富,有时也能揭示过去鲜为人知的一面。琳达·科利撰写了一部关于十八世纪一位名叫伊丽莎白·马奇的默默无闻的女性的传记。由于她的经历包括在摩洛哥被俘、在印度结婚,以及到访许多遥远的港口,这部传记展现了一个以贸易、移民和奴隶制为特征的全球海上世界;这本书是一部“跨越国界的传记”。 9

It is hard to deny that, with the best will in the world, biography nearly always entails some distortion, but there are good grounds for not dismissing it. First, Cowling’s objection carries much less weight in the case of political systems where power is concentrated in one man. Ian Kershaw, author of the most substantial biography of Hitler, has recounted how reluctant he was initially to attempt the task, since in his previous work he had focused on the structure of Nazi power in German society. But he came to realize that a structural approach required ‘increased reflection on the man who was the indispensable fulcrum and inspiration of what took place, Hitler himself’.8 Second, at the other extreme, biographies of people who were in no way outstanding can sometimes, if the documentation is rich enough, illuminate an otherwise obscure aspect of the past. Linda Colley has written the life of an obscure eighteenth-century woman called Elizabeth March. Because her experiences included capture in Morocco and marriage in India, as well as visits to many far-flung ports, the narrative sheds light on a global maritime world that featured trade, migration, and slavery; the book is ‘a biography that crosses boundaries’.9

利顿·斯特雷奇(1880–1932)

Lytton Strachey (1880–1932)

英国作家,也是著名的布卢姆斯伯里团体成员之一,该团体由一群居住在伦敦布卢姆斯伯里地区的文人组成。斯特雷奇的《维多利亚时代的杰出人物》(1918)以讽刺挖苦的笔触描绘了上世纪四位备受尊崇的人物,其中包括弗洛伦斯·南丁格尔和戈登将军,这令许多读者感到震惊。

British writer and member of the famous group of literary figures known from the area of London where many of them lived as the Bloomsbury group. Strachey’s Eminent Victorians (1918) shocked many readers by taking a satirical, sarcastic approach to four revered figures from the previous century, including Florence Nightingale and General Gordon.

最后,或许也是最重要的一点,传记对于理解动机和意图至关重要。历史学家们对于动机(区别于经济和社会力量)在历史解释中应占据多大比重存在诸多争议,而且如今对动机的重视程度显然不如十九世纪;但显而易见,个人的动机在解释历史事件中扮演着一定的角色。一旦承认这一点,传记的意义就显而易见了。只有从个人的情感构成、性情和偏见出发,才能充分理解其行为。当然,即使是资料最详实的传记,也仍然存在许多推测的成分:尤其是公众人物的著作,往往带有自欺欺人和精心算计的色彩。但是,研究过传主从童年到成年发展历程的传记作家,更有可能做出正确的推断。正因如此,本世纪的传记作家们越来越重视传主的私人生活或内心世界,而不仅仅是他们的公共生涯。从这个角度来看,过去重要人物的个人发展本身就是一个值得进行历史研究的课题。

Lastly, and perhaps most important of all, biography is indispensable to the understanding of motive and intention. There is much dispute among historians as to how prominently matters of motive – as distinct from economic and social forces – should feature in historical explanation, and they certainly receive less emphasis now than they did in the nineteenth century; but plainly the motives of individuals have some part to play in explaining historical events. Once this much is conceded, the relevance of biography is obvious. The actions of an individual can be fully understood only in the light of his or her emotional make-up, temperament and prejudices. Of course in even the best documented lives a great deal remains a matter of conjecture: the writings of public figures especially are often coloured by self-deception as well as deliberate calculation. But the biographer who has studied the development of his or her subject from childhood to maturity is much more likely to make the right inferences. It is for this reason that during the present century biographers have increasingly stressed the private or inner lives of their subjects as well as their public careers. From this perspective the personal development of important individuals in the past is a valid subject of historical enquiry in its own right.

第四

IV

什么是社会史?

What is social history?

没有哪个历史分支比社会史更明确地宣称其对个体漠不关心。这个标签总是表明其关注点在于整个社会——即便实际研究的只是其中的一小部分。事实上,社会史的全部抱负并非一开始就显而易见。首先,它研究的是诸如贫困、无知、精神疾病和疾病等社会问题的历史。历史学家关注的与其说是受这些问题困扰的人们的经历,不如说是这些问题对整个社会构成的“问题”;他们研究私人慈善事业的改革努力,例如学校、孤儿院和医院等慈善机构,以及自19世纪中叶以来国家在社会领域日益有效的干预。艾薇·平奇贝克和玛格丽特·休伊特的两卷本著作《英国社会中的儿童》(1969年,1973年)便体现了这种社会史研究类型的局限性;他们详细记录了四百年来有组织的慈善事业和政府关怀所取得的成就,但所有这些关怀和关注的接受者却很少被提及,而那些不需要帮助的孩子则完全没有出现在他们的记录中。

No branch of history proclaims its indifference to the individual more clearly than social history. That label always indicates a focus on society as a whole – even if only a small fragment has actually been investigated. In fact the full ambition of social history was not immediately apparent. There was, first, the history of social problems such as poverty, ignorance, insanity and disease. Historians focused less on the experience of people afflicted by these conditions than on the ‘problem’ that they posed to society as a whole; they studied the reforming efforts of private philanthropy, as seen in charitable institutions such as schools, orphanages and hospitals, and the increasingly effective intervention of the state in the social field from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. The limitations of this genre of social history can be illustrated in the case of Ivy Pinchbeck and Margaret Hewitt’s two-volume study, Children in English Society (1969, 1973); they documented in detail the achievements of organized charity and government concern over a period of four hundred years, but the recipients of all this care and attention are only occasionally heard, while children who were not in need are entirely absent from their account.

慈善事业

philanthropy

慈善工作。

Charitable work.

其次,社会史指的是家庭、工作场所和社区日常生活的历史。正如G.M.特里维廉所说,“社会史或许可以被否定地定义为:一个民族的历史,却忽略了政治。” 10 他的《英国社会史》(1944)长期以来都是一部经典之作,但它对经济的关注也寥寥无几,而且读起来像是他早期(主要侧重政治的)《英国史》(1926)中未涵盖的各种杂项主题的大杂烩;书中描述细节丰富,但主题缺乏连贯性。这类作品大多带有挽歌般的意味:既惋惜前工业时代的逝去——那时日常生活规模适中,节奏自然——又厌恶现代都市生活的失范和丑陋。

Social history meant, second, the history of everyday life in the home, the workplace and the community. As G.M. Trevelyan put it, ‘Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out’.10 His English Social History (1944), for long a standard work, took little account of economics either, and much of it reads like a catch-all for the miscellaneous topics that did not fit into his earlier (and largely political) History of England (1926); there is a great deal of descriptive detail, but little coherence of theme. Much of this kind of writing has an elegiac tone: a regret for the passing of the pre-industrial order when everyday life was on a human scale and geared to natural rhythms, and a revulsion from the anomie and ugliness of modern urban living.

G·M·特里维廉(1876–1962)

G.M. Trevelyan (1876–1962)

乔治·麦考利·特里维廉,英国历史学家,著名历史学家托马斯·巴宾顿·麦考利的侄孙。他著作颇丰,最著名的作品是广受欢迎的《英国社会史》,这部作品反映了战时人们对一个更加稳定的社会逝去的惋惜之情。

George Macaulay Trevelyan, British historian and great-nephew of the celebrated historian Thomas Babington Macaulay. A prolific writer, he is best known for his popular English Social History, which reflected a wartime regret for the passing of a more stable society.

挽歌

elegiac

充满诗意和抒情色彩,唤起人们对往昔岁月的回忆。

Lyrical, poetic evocation of times past.

劳工史和底层历史

Labour history and history from below

最后,还有普通民众或工人阶级的历史,他们在政治史上几乎完全缺席。在英国,这类社会史研究自十九世纪末以来一直由同情劳工运动的历史学家主导。尽管他们常常满怀热情地投身于工人事业,但当时的著作几乎未受马克思主义的影响。他们的主要关注点在于为英国劳工运动构建一种集体历史认同,而他们寻求的并非新的理论框架(马克思主义当然非常适合),而是工人阶级自身在过去一个世纪的历史经验——物质和社会匮乏、自助的传统以及争取提高工资和改善工作条件的斗争。对于20世纪三四十年代英国最重要的劳工史学家GDH·科尔而言,似乎没有什么比“随着工人阶级逐渐掌握全部权力,它既应该回顾过去,也应该展望未来,并根据自身的历史经验来制定政策”更为重要。 11劳工史往往自成一派,对那些未参与劳工运动的人影响有限。

Lastly, there was the history of the common people, or working classes, who were almost entirely absent from political history. In Britain this kind of social history was from the end of the nineteenth century dominated by historians sympathetic to the labour movement. Although often passionately committed to the workers’ cause, their writings were at this stage hardly affected by Marxist influence. Their main concern was to furnish the British labour movement with a collective historical identity, and they sought it not through a new theoretical framework (for which Marxism was of course well suited), but in the historical experience of the working class itself during the preceding century – the material and social deprivation, the tradition of self-help, and the struggles for improved wages and conditions of employment. For G.D.H. Cole, the leading British labour historian during the 1930s and 1940s, nothing seemed more important than that ‘as the working class grows towards the full exercise of power, it should look back as well as forward, and shape its policy in the light of its own historic experience’.11 Labour history tended to live in a world of its own, with only a limited impact on those not involved in the labour movement.

这种社会史研究传统在20世纪60年代以“自下而上的历史”为旗帜复兴和发展。但与带有强烈制度偏见的劳工史不同,“自下而上的历史”关注的是那些在历史记录中最不为人知的非组织化群体和边缘群体。自下而上地看待历史并非仅仅意味着重现日常生活的节奏,而是要从普通民众的视角审视过去,并认同他们的政治诉求。最重要的是,“自下而上的历史”挑战了许多历史学家赋予普通民众的被动性。民众的能动性和抵抗是其标志。乔治·鲁德是这种方法的早期倡导者,他研究了18世纪伦敦和革命时期巴黎的城市民众;他拒绝使用“暴民”一词,而是重构了那些走上街头表达不满的人们的动机和方法。他对1780年戈登暴乱的研究堪称经典,这场暴乱导致政府整整一周都无法控制伦敦街头。12 20世纪70年代,历史工作坊运动进一步拓展了鲁德的研究领域。历史工作坊虽然以牛津大学拉斯金学院(一所由工会赞助的学院)为基地,但其研究范围很快从有组织的工人扩展到涵盖社会中所有处于精英阶层之外——或“低于”精英阶层——的群体,而传统的历史研究正是建立在这些精英阶层之上。历史研究的方向逐渐明确。妇女史和移民社区史很快便崭露头角。历史工作坊”尤其引人注目,它不仅吸引了构成其核心的左翼学者,还吸引了业余历史学家和社区历史学家。

This tradition of social history was revived and expanded during the 1960s under the banner of history from below. But whereas labour history was characterized by a strong institutional bias, history from below concentrates on the unorganized and the marginal who have been least visible in the historical record. Seeing history from the bottom up does not just mean recreating the rhythms of everyday life. It means seeing the past from the point of view of ordinary people and identifying with their politics. Above all, history from below contests the passivity to which ordinary people have been consigned by so many historians. Popular agency and resistance are its hallmarks. An early exponent of this approach was George Rudé, who studied the urban crowd in both eighteenth-century London and revolutionary Paris; he rejected the use of the word ‘mob’, and instead reconstructed the motives and methods of those who took to the streets to voice their grievances. His study of the Gordon Riots of 1780, when the government lost control of the streets of London for an entire week, is a classic of its kind.12 Rudé’s agenda was broadened still further in the 1970s by the History Workshop movement. Though based at Ruskin, the trade-union-sponsored college at Oxford, History Workshop quickly extended its range from organized workers to encompass all groups in society that stood outside – or ‘below’ – the elites on which traditional histories had focused. Women’s history and the history of immigrant communities soon made their appearance.13 History Workshop has been particularly notable in drawing in amateur and community historians, alongside the left-wing academics who form its core.

历史和社会结构

History and social structure

但迄今为止提及的任何方法都无法完全解释为何长期以来处于弱势地位的社会史如今却享有如此重要的地位。20世纪60年代和70年代发生的事情是,社会史的研究对象被以一种更为雄心勃勃的方式重新定义。如今,社会史的目标是提供社会结构史的研究。 “社会结构”的概念是一种社会学上的抽象概念,其含义模糊不清,可以——也确实——被赋予各种理论外衣。但其本质是指社会中众多不同群体之间社会关系的总和。在马克思主义思想的影响下,阶级获得了最多的关注,但这绝非唯一需要考虑的群体:年龄、性别、种族和职业等相互交织的因素也不容忽视。

But none of the approaches mentioned so far entirely explains why social history, for so long the poor relation, now enjoys such prominence. What happened in the 1960s and 1970s was that its subject matter was redefined in a much more ambitious manner. Social history now aspires to offer nothing less than the history of social structure. The notion of ‘social structure’ is a sociological abstraction of a conveniently indeterminate kind, which can be – and has been – clothed in any number of theoretical garbs. But what it essentially means is the sum of the social relationships between the many different groups in society. Under the influence of Marxist thought, class has had the lion’s share of attention, but it is by no means the only kind of group to be considered: there are also the cross-cutting ties of age, gender, race and occupation.

社会结构似乎是一个静态的、永恒的概念,部分原因是许多社会学家的著作都以这种方式来探讨它。但事实并非如此,历史学家自然倾向于采取一种更为动态的视角。正如早期现代英国著名社会史学家基思·赖特森所言:

Social structure may seem to be a static, timeless concept, partly because it has been treated in this way in the writings of many sociologists. But it need not be so, and historians tend naturally to adopt a more dynamic approach. As Keith Wrightson, a leading social historian of early modern England, puts it:

社会是一个过程,它绝非静止不变。即使是最看似稳定的结构,也是各种动态力量之间平衡的体现。对于社会史学家而言,最具挑战性的任务在于重现这一过程,同时辨析社会组织、社会关系以及赋予社会关系的意义和评价的长期变迁。 14

Society is a process. It is never static. Even its most apparently stable structures are the expression of an equilibrium between dynamic forces. For the social historian the most challenging of tasks is that of recapturing that process, while at the same time discerning long-term shifts in social organization, in social relations and in the meanings and evaluations with which social relationships are infused.14

在稳固的社会结构背景下,社会地位的升降往往具有特殊意义,社会流动性一直是历史学家研究的热点。然而,社会流动性一旦超过某个临界点,便会与现有结构的维系相悖,新的社会形态可能由此出现,工业革命时期便是最根本的例证。尤其需要研究城市化,不仅要关注其经济层面,更要将其视为一个社会变革的过程,包括移民的同化等。社会分层新形式的出现、工作与休闲界限的日益清晰等等;美国在这方面做出了重要的开创性研究,城市史在英国也是一门重要的专业。 15对社会结构和社会变迁的分析对经济史和政治史具有重大意义,近年来社会史学家在这些领域提出了很高的要求。旷日持久的“乡绅之争”主要围绕着英国内战前一百年间社会结构变迁与政治冲突之间的联系展开。 16如今,人们不仅从经济和地理因素中寻找工业革命的起源,也从十八世纪英国的社会结构中寻找——尤其是“开放的贵族阶层”,其内部人员和财富的双向流动。 17至此,社会史开始接近其最广义的“社会史”,而有人认为,这才是社会史的真正范畴。 18

Against the background of a durable social structure, those individuals or groups who move up or down are often particularly significant, and social mobility has been much studied by historians. Beyond a certain point, social mobility is incompatible with the maintenance of the existing structure, and a new form of society may emerge, as happened most fundamentally during the Industrial Revolution. Urbanization, in particular, needs to be studied not just in its economic aspects, but as a process of social change, including the assimilation of immigrants, the emergence of new forms of social stratification, the hardening distinction between work and leisure, and so on; important work along these lines has been pioneered in America, and urban history is a significant specialism in Britain too.15 The analysis of social structure and social change can have major implications for economic and political history, and social historians in recent years have staked out large claims in these areas. The long drawn out ‘gentry controversy’ was mainly a dispute about the connection between changing social structure and political conflict in England during the hundred years before the Civil War.16 The origins of the Industrial Revolution are now sought not only in economic and geographical factors, but in the social structure of eighteenth-century England – especially the ‘open aristocracy’, with a two-way flow of men and wealth into and out of its ranks.17 At this point, social history begins to approximate to the ‘history of society’ in its broadest sense which, it has been argued, is its proper domain.18

绅士阶层争议

gentry controversy

在学术界,关于十七世纪早期英国社会变革的发展及其与英国革命起源的关系,一直存在着一场旷日持久的争论。争论的焦点在于,下层土地所有者阶级(乡绅)的社会和经济地位是否在以牺牲旧有的土地贵族为代价而“上升”,或者情况恰恰相反。这场争论持续多年,是本科生论文的常见主题;然而,由于很难对“乡绅”和“贵族”做出明确的定义,也很难准确界定一个阶级“上升”的含义,因此这场争论始终没有得出明确的结论。

A long-running argument in academic circles about the development of social change in early seventeenth-century England and its bearing on the origins of the English Civil War. The argument was over whether the lesser landowning class (the gentry) was ‘rising’ in social and economic status at the expense of the older landed aristocracy, or whether the opposite was true. The argument raged for many years and was a staple feature of undergraduate essays; however, since it is not easy to come up with a clear-cut definition of ‘gentry’ and ‘aristocracy’, or exactly what is meant by a class ‘rising’, no clear conclusion was ever reached.

早期许多规模较小、目标较为保守的社会史著作,只要调整其研究范围,便与这一新的关注点息息相关。新一代社会史学家中,许多人最初都局限于既定的某个或某些范畴的狭隘视野之内。20世纪六七十年代最著名的社会史学家E·P·汤普森,其研究根植于劳工史传统,但在《英国工人阶级的形成》(1963)一书中,他却跳出了这一框架;他将工业革命时期工人阶级意识的觉醒置于尽可能广阔的背景下进行考察,涵盖了宗教、休闲娱乐、大众文化,以及工厂制度和工会运动的起源;而且,政治非但没有被“排除在外”,反而作为阶级控制的工具,始终存在且令人感到威胁。

Much of the earlier, less ambitious social history is relevant to this new concern, provided its terms of reference are revised. The new social historians include many who started within the more limited horizons of one or other of the established categories. E.P. Thompson, the best-known social historian during the 1960s and 1970s, had his roots deep in the labour history tradition, but in The Making of the English Working Class (1963) he stepped outside it; the growth of a working-class awareness during the Industrial Revolution is placed in the widest possible context, including religion, leisure and popular culture, as well as the factory system and the origins of trade unionism; and, so far from politics being ‘left out’, the presence of the state is both constant and menacing, as an instrument of class control.

EP Thompson(1924–93)

E.P. Thompson (1924–93)

英国马克思主义历史学家汤普森也积极参与社会主义政治活动。他的《英国工人阶级的形成》是首次尝试讲述18世纪末19世纪初独特的工人阶级文化和身份认同发展历程的著作。

British Marxist historian. Thompson was also active in socialist politics. His Making of the English Working Class was the first attempt to tell the story of the development of a distinctive working-class culture and identity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

汤普森研究的时期不仅对英国社会史的形成至关重要,而且涌现出众多杰出人物。汤普森本人最后出版的作品是对富有远见的画家兼诗人威廉·布莱克的研究。 19 历史学家并非简单地将研究群体的学者和研究个体的学者区分开来。传记和社会史或许代表着截然不同的视角,但两者都不可或缺,并且在当代历史研究实践中都占据着重要地位。

As well as being formative in the social history of Britain, the period covered by Thompson was rich in distinguished individuals. Thompson’s own last published work was a study of the visionary painter and poet, William Blake.19 Historians do not divide neatly between students of the mass and students of the individual. Biography and social history may represent sharply divergent perspectives, but both are needed, and both feature prominently in contemporary historical practice.

V

V

经济史

Economic history

我的第二个对比是物质世界和精神世界。前者关注生活的外在需求;后者则探究思想和情感的内在世界。两者都必须在对过去的全面重构中得到体现。经济史聚焦于“世俗必需品”——这也是一部杰出的早期现代英国经济史著作的标题。 20它试图重构生产、交换和消费。这些活动大多可以通过外部观察来了解,而且在许多情况下都可以量化。这种方法与另一种方法形成对比,后者旨在重构心理过程,包括形式思维、宗教信仰和情感状态。这些过程无法量化或观察,需要相当程度的同理心以及解读文本和图像潜在含义的能力。

My second pairing contrasts the material and mental worlds. The one deals with the external requirements of life; the other probes the internal world of thought and emotion. Both must feature in a comprehensive recovery of the past. Economic history focuses on ‘earthly necessities’ – the title of an outstanding economic history of early modern England.20 It seeks to reconstruct production, exchange and consumption. Such activities are for the most part a matter of external observation, and in many cases they can be measured. This approach can be contrasted with one that seeks to reconstruct mental processes, including formal thought, religious belief and emotional states. These cannot be measured or observed, and they call for a considerable degree of empathy and an ability to tease out the possible meanings of texts and images.

经济史是第一个在政治史之外获得认可的专业领域。到1914年,它已在包括英国在内的多个国家发展成为一个界限分明的研究领域。经济史与当代问题的相关性在很大程度上解释了它为何能领先于其他竞争学科;事实上,在许多大学,尤其是在美国,经济史并非作为通史的一部分进行研究,而是与经济学相结合。经济学这门学科本身直到19世纪末才刚刚获得普遍认可。在英国和欧洲其他地区,许多先驱性的研究都集中在国家经济政策上——这种方法只需要接受过政治史训练的历史学家稍作调整。但这显然不足以理解工业化这一历史现象,工业化从一开始就占据了经济史学家研究议程的重要位置。这导致了对英国——第一个经历工业革命的国家——的特别关注,并吸引了来自欧洲大陆和英国的历史学家。他们的著作尤其擅长对特定产业进行地方性研究,例如兰开夏郡的棉纺织业或约克郡的羊毛产业,并着重强调了个人主动性和技术创新。这种研究方法的些许痕迹,至今仍能在那些将英国工业革命描述为十八世纪晚期一系列发明创造的老式教科书中看到。

Economic history was the first specialism to gain recognition outside political history. By 1914 it had emerged as a sharply defined area of study in several countries, including Britain. The relevance of economic history to contemporary problems largely explains its head-start over other contenders; indeed, in many universities, especially in America, economic history was studied not as part of general history, but in conjunction with economics, a discipline whose own claims to academic respectability had only just won general recognition by the end of the nineteenth century. Both in Britain and in the rest of Europe, much of the pioneer work concerned the economic policies of the state – an approach that required the minimum adaptation on the part of historians schooled in political history. But this was clearly an inadequate base on which to come to grips with the historical phenomenon of industrialization, which from the start loomed large on the agenda of economic historians. It resulted in a special emphasis on Britain, the first country to experience an industrial revolution, and attracted continental as much as British historians. Their work was particularly strong on local studies of particular industries, such as Lancashire cotton textiles or Yorkshire woollens, and it highlighted individual initiative and technical innovation. A pale reflection of this approach is still to be seen in those old-fashioned textbooks which chronicle Britain’s Industrial Revolution as a sequence of inventions made in the late eighteenth century.

经济史和政治史之间错综复杂的相互作用

The difficult interplay of economic and political history

在许多方面,经济史与政治史形成了鲜明的对比。二者的时间顺序截然不同。经济史往往轻视政治文化和民族传统的差异,尤其是在研究现代全球经济时。它对历史学家历来关注的人物和动机等因素着墨甚少;相反,通货膨胀或投资等“非人格化”的力量往往占据了中心地位。此外,经济史学家热衷于动摇非专业同行们的一些基本假设——其中最引人注目的是一些否认英国经历过工业革命的著作。 21正因如此,许多政治史学家宁愿与经济史保持距离。但实际上,他们的研究方向已经受到了经济史研究成果的积极影响。例如,如果不了解十六世纪的大通货膨胀,就无法理解都铎王朝政府的财政困境——以及由此引发的与议会之间的政治冲突。22同样,对于1899年爆发于英国和盛产黄金的德兰士瓦之间的布尔战争的起源的解释,也根据当时国际金本位制兴衰的精确信息进行了修正。23

In many ways economic history offers about the biggest contrast to political history that can be imagined. Its chronology is quite different. It often makes light of differences of political culture and national tradition, particularly in studies of the modern global economy. And it gives minimal scope to personality and motive, the classic preoccupations of historians; instead ‘impersonal’ forces such as inflation or investment tend to hold the centre of the stage. Furthermore, economic historians delight in undermining the bedrock assumptions of their non-specialist colleagues – most provocatively in several works that deny that Britain experienced an industrial revolution at all.21 For all these reasons many political historians would prefer to hold economic history at arm’s length. But in practice their own agenda has been influenced by the findings of economic history in very positive ways. For example, the financial predicament of Tudor governments – and the political difficulties with Parliament that this brought in its train – cannot be grasped without an understanding of the great inflation of the sixteenth century.22 Similarly, interpretations of the origins of the Boer War, which broke out in 1899 between Britain and the gold-rich Transvaal, have been modified in the light of precise information about the vicissitudes of the international gold standard at that time.23

企业和经济增长

Enterprise and economic growth

在现代经济史的现有著述中,有两个趋势尤为突出,尽管它们并不能完全涵盖其研究范围。第一个趋势是商业史——即基于企业的商业记录对单个企业进行系统研究。这类研究的史料通常易于获取,而且允许查阅资料的企业有时还会承担研究费用。无论历史学家是否认同资本主义企业家精神的价值观,这类研究最显著的成果在于能够更深刻地理解经济扩张的机制,尤其是在某个行业发展史上的关键节点。商业史研究的意义远不止于此。例如,1870年至1914年间英国经济衰退的开端在多大程度上是由企业家精神的缺失造成的,就是一个商业史学家可以做出重要贡献的重要议题。

Two trends stand out in current writing on modern economic history, though they do not define its entire scope. The first one is business history – the systematic study of individual firms on the basis of their business records. The source materials are usually manageable, and firms that allow access to them sometimes foot the bill for research as well. Whether or not the historian identifies with the values of capitalist entrepreneurship, what comes out best from these studies is a keener understanding of the mechanisms of economic expansion, often at a critical juncture in the history of an industry. The implications of research in business history can be wider still. How far the beginning of Britain’s economic decline in the period 1870–1914 was caused by a failure of entrepreneurship is a major issue on which business historians have much to contribute.

商业史可以被视为经济史的实地考察。与之相反,第二种方法旨在解释整个经济体增长或衰退的动态过程。这无疑是当今经济学领域最重要的议题,无论对于专业经济学家还是普通大众而言皆是如此;而且,自200年前工业化开始以来,它就以一种可辨识的现代形式存在,因此历史学家对此感兴趣也就不足为奇了。但为了参与更广泛的讨论,他们不得不磨砺自己的分析工具。早期的经济史著作,例如J·H·克拉普汉姆的《现代英国经济史》(1926-1938),本质上是描述性的:它们重构了特定时期的经济生活,有时甚至细致入微,但在解释一个阶段如何过渡到下一个阶段时,它们对经济变革的实际机制却鲜有关注。而当前的讨论主要围绕这些机制展开,并且是在经济学家自20世纪50年代以来开展的关于增长的高度复杂的理论研究的背景下进行的。如果历史学家想要公正地解读这一领域的史料,他们就必须比以往更加精通各种相互竞争的理论解释;而由于检验这些理论依赖于对增长指标的精确测量,历史学家也必须成为量化者。在这一领域,打破年鉴学派半个世纪前所倡导的跨学科壁垒,比其他任何领域都更为彻底。

Business history may be regarded as economic history on the ground. The second approach, by contrast, seeks to explain the dynamics of growth or decline for an entire economy. This is quite simply the biggest issue in economics today, both for professional economists and for the lay public; and since it has been present in a recognizably modern form since the onset of industrialization 200 years ago, it is hardly surprising that historians should be interested too. But in seeking to contribute to a wider debate they have been compelled to sharpen their analytical tools. The older economic histories such as J.H. Clapham’s Economic History of Modern Britain (1926–38) were essentially descriptive: they reconstructed the economic life of a particular period, sometimes in vivid detail, but in explaining how one phase gave way to the next they showed little interest in the actual mechanisms of economic change. The current debates are very largely about those mechanisms, and they are conducted in the context of the highly sophisticated theoretical work on growth that economists have been carrying out since the 1950s. If historians are to do justice to their material in this area, they have to be much more versed in the competing theoretical explanations than they used to be; and since the testing of these theories depends on the accurate measurement of indices of growth, historians must also become quantifiers. In this field the breaking down of those inter-disciplinary barriers which the Annales school called for half a century ago has been more complete than in any other.

六年级

VI

走进过去的思想

Getting into the mind of the past

经济史侧重于外部可观察的行为,这与对智力、情感和心理状态的研究形成鲜明对比。根据人们在特定结构中的位置,通过职业、地位和财富来对其进行分类是一回事;而深入探究他们的假设和态度,将他们视为“有感知、有反思能力的个体”,则是另一回事。24这种方法涵盖了政治思想、宗教和大众心理学等诸多主题。它们从未被归入同一个范畴,但它们的共同之处在于都关注心理过程。个体和集体行为仍然重要,但它们只是作为推断心理或信仰的基础。

Economic history, with its emphasis on externally observed behaviour, can be contrasted with the study of intellectual, emotional and psychological states. It is one thing to categorize people according to their place in a given structure by indicating their occupation, status and wealth. It is quite another to enter into their assumptions and attitudes, to see them as ‘sentient reflecting beings’.24 This approach includes themes as varied as political thought, religion and mass psychology. They have never been brought together under a single label, but what they have in common is a concern with mental process. Individual and collective behaviour still count, but as a basis for making inferences about mentality or belief.

鉴于十九世纪历史学研究的政治倾向,政治思想史拥有最悠久的历史传承也就不足为奇了。柏拉图、马基雅维利和霍布斯等作家的著作被视为构建单一西方传统的基石。然而,如今的学者更加注重理解这些思想家的历史背景——他们的思想是在对周围事件的回应中形成的,并受到当时文化资源的限制。人们也更加敏锐地意识到,一个时代的思想格局并非主要由少数几部影响后世的伟大著作构成;几乎可以肯定的是,这些著作只有少数人才能接触到。当时人们用来评判(并在许多情况下谴责)这些伟大人物的普遍认知,是同时代人从早期思想传统中选择性地、不连贯地保留下来的。对于政治史学家而言,尤其重要的是那些并不声称拥有原创思想的人们所处的思想体系。从这个角度来看,新思想通过衍生和短暂的文献传播,与它们在伟大思想家脑海中的起源同样重要。唯有如此,才能真正理解革命变革时期思想的强大力量。例如,在《美国革命的思想起源》(1967)一书中,伯纳德·贝林通过研究1750年至1776年间在十三殖民地出版的约400份与英美冲突相关的宣传册,重构了普通美国人的政治文化。他的研究揭示了新英格兰清教徒传统和启蒙思想(这些思想长期以来被认为是理所当然的)的影响,以及英国内战时期反权威政治思想的影响。这种思想由18世纪早期英国激进的宣传册作者传承下来,并跨越大西洋传播开来。此时,思想史仿佛进入了市场,成为当时共同文化的一部分。

Given the political orientation of historical scholarship as it matured during the nineteenth century, it comes as no surprise that the history of political thought has the longest pedigree. The works of writers like Plato, Machiavelli and Hobbes were seen as building blocks in a single Western tradition. Today, however, scholars place much more emphasis on understanding these thinkers in their historical context – forming their ideas in response to the events unfolding around them, restricted by the cultural resources available to them. A much keener awareness is also shown of the fact that the intellectual landscape of a period is not primarily composed of the handful of great works that have inspired posterity; almost by definition, these were inaccessible to all but a few. The common wisdom of the day against which the great names were judged (and in many instances condemned) was what contemporaries had retained, often selectively and incoherently, from earlier traditions of thought. For the political historian especially, what counts is the set of ideas within which people with no claims to intellectual originality operated, and from this perspective the diffusion of new ideas through derivative and ephemeral literature is as important as their genesis in the mind of a great thinker. The intellectual context of periods of revolutionary change when ideas are often particularly potent can be properly understood in no other way. In The Intellectual Origins of the American Revolution (1967), for example, Bernard Bailyn reconstructed the political culture of ordinary Americans from 400 or so pamphlets bearing on the Anglo-American conflict which were published in the thirteen colonies between 1750 and 1776. His research revealed the influence of not only the New England Puritan tradition and the thought of the Enlightenment, which had long been taken for granted, but also the antiauthoritarian political thought of the Civil War period in England, kept alive by English radical pamphleteers of the early eighteenth century and transmitted across the Atlantic. At this point the history of ideas enters the market-place, as it were, and becomes part of the common culture of the day.

宗教史

The history of religion

宗教史也提出了类似的问题。从某种程度上说,这关乎马丁·路德伊格内修斯·罗耀拉等伟大宗教领袖的生平和著作。此外,还有强烈的……鉴于基督教教会在其历史的大部分时期都拥有巨大的权力,研究宗教机构的历史已成为一种传统。但越来越多的历史学家开始关注大众宗教:人们相信什么?他们的信仰如何影响他们的生活?皈依是一个很有前景的研究切入点。在《摧毁魔鬼王国》(2001)一书中,帕梅拉·沃克考察了维多利亚时代晚期英国的救世军。她以早期救世军成员的皈依经历为核心,这些成员来自伦敦最贫困的社区,研究依据是他们已出版的传记和救世军的期刊《战号》。与此同时,有组织的宗教往往不得不与非官方的信仰体系并存。在《宗教与魔法的衰落》(1971)一书中,基思·托马斯评估了宗教改革和英国革命时期巫术、预言和占星术的兴衰。托马斯说:“我希望我的研究能够增进我们对早期现代英国精神氛围的了解。” 25

Comparable issues are raised by the history of religion. At one level, this is about the life and writings of great religious leaders like Martin Luther or Ignatius Loyola. There is also a strong tradition of studying the history of religious institutions, given the immense power of the Christian Churches throughout most of their history. But increasingly historians have turned to the study of popular religion: what did people believe, and how did their beliefs affect their lives? Conversion is a promising place to start. In Pulling the Devil’s Kingdom Down (2001) Pamela Walker examines the Salvation Army in late Victorian Britain. At the heart of her account is the conversion experiences of early Salvationists recruited from the poorest neighbourhoods of London, based on their published biographies and on the War Cry (the Army’s journal). At the same time, organized religion has often had to co-exist with unofficial belief systems. In Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971) Keith Thomas assessed the ebb and flow of witchcraft, prophecy and astrology during the era of the Reformation and the English Revolution. ‘I hope’, says Thomas, ‘to have contributed to our knowledge of the mental climate of early modern England.’25

马丁·路德(1483–1546)

Martin Luther (1483–1546)

他是基督教历史上最具影响力的人物之一。1517年,他抗议教皇的权威,由此引发了宗教改革和西方教会的分裂。在德国和其他地区统治者的支持下,他的思想迅速传播开来。

One of the most influential figures in the history of Christianity. His protest against the authority of the Pope in 1517 began the Protestant Reformation and the split in the Western Church. His ideas rapidly spread under the patronage of rulers in Germany and elsewhere.

伊格内修斯·罗耀拉(1491–1556)

Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556)

他是耶稣会的创始人,该会以灵修和传教工作为基础。他的一生和成就象征着天主教会为应对新教的挑战(即反宗教改革)而重振旗鼓的决心。

Founder of the Jesuit order, based on spiritual discipline and missionary work. His life and achievements symbolized the resolve of the Catholic Church to reinvigorate itself against the Protestant challenge (known as the Counter-Reformation).

有些历史著作可以清晰地归入“物质”或“精神”阵营。一项基于统计数据的经济研究显然与一项基于对法庭证词细致解读的民间魔法研究截然不同。但必须强调的是,物质与精神并非不可调和的对立面。它们更像是指南针上的两个方位,我们可以以此为参照来定位历史著作。事实上,一些最具启发性的作品将物质与精神置于一个连续体上,并将它们整合到一个综合分析中。例如,在十九世纪世俗思想兴起的案例中,很难区分教会捍卫信仰与巩固其集体权力之间的区别。近年来经济史中最具活力的研究方向之一是消费史。现代历史学家认为购物不仅仅是满足物质需求;到了19世纪末,大城市的中产阶级女性可以将购物体验为一种浪漫而迷人的享受,这得益于新兴百货商店的推广:正如一项研究的标题“购物的乐趣”(Shopping For Pleasure)所恰如其分地概括的那样。26

Some works of history can be clearly allocated to either the ‘material’ or the ‘mental’ camp. An economic study based on statistics is clearly in a different category from an investigation of popular magic based on the close reading of court depositions. But it is important to stress that the material and the mental are not irreconcilable opposites. They are better regarded as compass points, around which we can take our bearings when placing a work of history. In fact some of the most illuminating work places the material and the mental on a continuum and brings them together in an integrated analysis. For example, in the case of the rise of secular thought during the nineteenth century, it is not easy to distinguish the Churches’ defence of the faith from the securing of their corporate power. One of the most buoyant strands of recent economic history is the history of consumption. Modern historians see shopping as more than the satisfaction of material wants; by the late nineteenth century middle-class women in the major cities could experience shopping as romance and glamour, promoted by the new department stores: Shopping For Pleasure, as the title of one study aptly puts it.26

第七章

VII

世界历史

World history

最后,历史学家运用了多种空间视角,从极端的地方视角到极端的全球视角。这两个极端看似毫不相干,但实际上都反驳了历史研究仅关注民族国家的传统观念。地方史和世界史都质疑民族国家作为历史研究默认框架的地位——前者质疑民族国家未能关注普通民众生活的社区;后者质疑民族国家忽视了影响并制约国家发展的全球网络。

Finally, historians deploy a variety of spatial perspectives, ranging from the local at one extreme to the global at the other. Once again, the two ends of the spectrum may seem to have little in common, but both are a reaction against the traditional assumption that history is about the nation-state and nothing else. Both local history and world history question the nation-state as the default framework for historical enquiry – the first on the grounds that it fails to engage with the communities in which ordinary people lived; the second because it ignores the global networks that have explained – and constrained – many aspects of the nation’s development.

乍看之下,世界史似乎是不可能的。谁又能“了解”地球上发生的一切呢?但世界史并非堆砌细节。与其他历史分支相比,它更依赖于选择,而选择的原则则取决于世界各地(有时甚至是全球)发生的各种主题和发展。例如,基督教和伊斯兰教等世界宗教的传播;新大陆粮食作物的扩散;以及全球商业体系的兴衰。这里可以提出两个重要的概括性观点。首先,世界史打破了学院派历史等同于西方历史的传统观念;采用全球视角意味着认真对待第三世界社会的历史——事实上,在18世纪末之前,像印度和中国这样的地区至少与西方国家一样强大和发达(参见第十章)。其次,由于世界史涉及将通常被单独研究的社会和文化并置比较,因此它大量运用了比较研究方法(第六章将对此进行更详细的讨论)。例如,要探究为什么基督教在十九世纪下半叶比伊斯兰教发展得更快(或者为什么在二十世纪下半叶两者之间的平衡发生了逆转),就需要一种要求很高的比较方法,不仅要涵盖每种信仰的独特特征,还要涵盖信徒所生活的社会。

At first glance world history sounds like an impossibility. How could anyone ‘know everything’ about what has happened on the planet? But world history is not about piling up detail. More than any other branch of history, it depends on selection, and the principle of selection is dictated by themes and developments which have occurred in different parts of the world, and in some cases all over the world. Examples include the spread of world religions like Christianity and Islam; the diffusion of New World food crops; and the rise and fall of global commercial systems. Two important general points can be made here. First, world history breaks the identification of academic history with the history of the West; to employ a global perspective means taking seriously the history of Third World societies – recognizing indeed that prior to the late eighteenth century regions like India and China were at least as powerful and as sophisticated as their Western counterparts (see Chapter 10). Second, because world history involves juxtaposing societies and cultures that are usually studied in separate compartments, it makes considerable use of the comparative method (discussed more fully in Chapter 6). For example, to ask why Christianity expanded more rapidly than Islam in the second half of the nineteenth century (or why the balance between them was reversed in the second half of the twentieth century) requires a highly demanding comparative approach, encompassing not just the distinctive features of each faith but the society in which believers lived.

全球化

Globalization

如果将世界史的研究对象定义为当今日益全球化的世界的起源,那么世界史的定义就更加精确了。全球化指的是我们的世界变得更加一体化和统一的过程,它缩短了时间和空间,并将生产和贸易纳入一个单一的国际资本主义体系。国家史对这一主题的阐释只能断断续续。全球史旨在理解我们这个全球化的世界(尽管它也可以在更广义的意义上指世界史)。对于历史学家而言,这尤其重要,因为当代评论往往过分强调全球化的新颖性,例如单一市场、快速通信和同质化文化。如同现代世界的几乎所有事物一样,全球化也经历了相当长的时间演变。其关键特征可以追溯到19世纪英国的崛起时期,更早的荷兰、葡萄牙和西班牙的海上帝国,甚至可以追溯到13世纪连接中国和西欧之间所有地区的“世界经济”。 27 人们认识到,在某些方面,如今的全球一体化程度不如过去。历史学家将19世纪末称为“高度全球化”时期,当时电报和轮船改变了通信方式,所有主要货币都可以按固定汇率兑换,而且——与今天截然不同——劳动力在大洋彼岸的自由流动几乎没有任何阻碍。28

Further precision is added to world history when its subject matter is defined as the origins of today’s increasingly globalized world. Globalization refers to the processes whereby our world has become more integrated and uniform, shrinking both time and distance, and absorbing production and trade into a single international capitalist system. National histories can cast only a fitful light on this theme. Global history signifies an effort to make sense of our globalizing world (though it can also mean world history in a broader sense). This is all the more necessary as a topic for historians because contemporary comment often overplays the novelty of globalization, with its single market, rapid communications and homogenized culture. Like nearly everything else in the modern world, globalization has evolved over a considerable period. Critical features can be traced back to the period of British ascendancy in the nineteenth century, to the earlier maritime empires of the Dutch, the Portuguese and the Spanish, and even to the ‘world economy’ linking all the lands between China and Western Europe in the thirteenth century.27 It is seldom recognized that in some ways global integration is less complete now than in the past. Historians refer to the late nineteenth century as the period of ‘high globalization’, when the telegraph and the steamship had transformed communications, when all the major currencies were convertible at a fixed rate, and when – a significant variation from today – there was little impediment to the free movement of labour across the oceans.28

墨卡托绘制的世界地图,1587年。环球航行使欧洲地图绘制者能够将世界作为一个整体来描绘。但他们的知识仍然存在局限性,正如这幅地图上对南极洲的描绘所示。十八世纪是精确地图绘制的分水岭。(布里奇曼艺术图书馆/私人收藏)

Mercator’s map of the world, 1587. The circumnavigation of the globe enabled European map-makers to represent the world as a whole. But there were still limits to their knowledge, as the depiction here of Antarctica shows. The eighteenth century was the watershed in accurate map-making. (Bridgeman Art Library/Private collection)

迄今为止,C.A.贝利的《现代世界的诞生》(2004)堪称全球史领域最令人印象深刻的著作之一。他明确的目标是将历史从民族国家的角度解放出来,并揭示现代性的多中心特征。这意味着,他不应将西方以外的世界视为欧洲扩张的被动接受者,而应将其视为积极适应不断变化的全球环境的动态社会。在19世纪之前,欧洲只是一个区域,与日本、中国、莫卧儿印度、波斯和奥斯曼帝国并列,贝利将这些区域间的全球联系称为“古老的全球化”。 29 19世纪,欧洲对世界其他地区的领先地位日益凸显,尤其是在技术和生产领域。但当今世界也应从第三世界的创造性反应中得到解释:在宗教领域,以及(或许更令人惊讶的是)在民族认同和社会组织方面。简而言之,现代性是一个真正的全球现象,需要像贝利这样具备全面全球视野的学术研究。

One of the most impressive works of global history to date is C.A. Bayly’s The Birth of the Modern World (2004). His declared aim is to rescue history from the nation and to bring to light the multi-centred character of modernity. This means seeing the world beyond the West not as passive recipients of European expansion, but as dynamic societies which made their own adjustments to changing global conditions. Before the nineteenth century Europe was just one region, along with Japan, China, Mughal India, Persia and the Ottoman Empire, whose worldwide links Bayly calls ‘archaic globalization’.29 Europe’s lead over the rest of the world became clear in the course of the nineteenth century, especially in the spheres of technology and production. But today’s world is also to be explained by creative reactions in the Third World: in religion, and also (more surprisingly perhaps) in national identity and social organization. Modernity, in short, was a truly global phenomenon, requiring a global reach of scholarship such as Bayly possesses in full measure.

第八

VIII

地方历史

Local history

与世界史一样,地方史直到最近才受到学术界的重视,但原因却有所不同。对特定地区最感兴趣的是居住在那里的人们。因此,尤其在英国,地方史过去常常由当地的业余爱好者主导,他们乐于钻研史料,却未必能领会其更广泛的意义。他们通常只关注乡绅和牧师的所作所为,而忽略了其他民众。他们的出版物也被认为只具有古物研究价值,而缺乏学术价值。

Like world history, local history has until relatively recently been disdained by the academic profession, but for different reasons. The greatest interest in a specific locality is felt by those who live there. Hence, especially in England, local history used to be dominated by local amateurs who were prepared to work at the sources without necessarily being able to recognize their wider significance. Typically they were preoccupied by the doings of the squire and the parson, to the exclusion of the rest of the population. Their publications were dismissed as being of antiquarian rather than academic interest.

过去五十年间,这种观点发生了彻底的转变。英国的地方史已经成为一种深入的……微观社会史。20世纪50年代,以W.G.霍斯金斯为首的“莱斯特学派”历史学家重新诠释了英国地方史,将其视为对历史社群的重建。霍斯金斯尤其重视视觉证据,例如田野格局、废弃的定居点和乡土建筑。其他历史学家则竭力搜集每一丝证据,以追踪单个家庭在一个世纪甚至更长时间内的兴衰。这种深入研究的前提是研究对象是一个人口最多不超过2000人的小型单元,换句话说,就是一个村庄。但在资料最详实的案例中,研究成果涵盖了社群生活的各个方面:土地利用、经济、社会结构和宗教。霍斯金斯对前工业时代的村庄情有独钟,因为这些村庄与他怀旧的田园生活十分契合。但这种方法同样具有价值,可以用来探究社会变迁中的人性现实。戴维·莱文和基思·赖特森合著的《工业社会的形成》一书,展现了泰恩赛德郡的威克姆村在十七、十八世纪如何适应煤矿开采的需求。30

The past fifty years have seen a complete reversal of this outlook. Local history in England has become a kind of in-depth microcosmic social history. During the 1950s the ‘Leicester school’ of historians, led by W.G. Hoskins, reinterpreted English local history as the reconstruction of historic communities. Hoskins laid special emphasis on visual evidence, such as field patterns, abandoned settlement sites and vernacular architecture. Other historians pursued every scrap of evidence in order to follow the fortunes of individual households over a century or more. Intensive study of this kind assumed a small unit with a maximum population of 2,000, in other words a village. But in the best-documented cases the outcome was a study that brought together every dimension of community life: land use, economy, social structure and religion. Hoskins was drawn to pre-industrial villages, which approximated to his nostalgic pastoralism. But the method is equally valuable as a means of investigating the human realities of social change. The Making of an Industrial Society by David Levine and Keith Wrightson shows how the Tyneside village of Whickham adapted to the requirements of coal-mining during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.30

微观史与总体史

Microhistory and total history

在社区研究中,知道人名并不一定意味着了解这些人:家庭规模、职业和教会成员身份通常只能帮助我们对村庄居民进行分类。但在某些特殊情况下,现存的史料能够使人物鲜活起来,让我们产生一种仿佛身临其境的错觉,如同阅读小说一般。这类研究通常被称为微观史——这个术语由20世纪70年代开创这一领域的意大利学者提出。 31其中最著名的例子是埃马纽埃尔·勒罗伊·拉杜里对14世纪蒙塔尤生活的记述。拉杜里主要依据宗教裁判所的记录,重构了蒙塔尤农民的日常生活——他们的社会关系、宗教和巫术习俗,以及他们对性的态度,乃至大部分实际的性生活。我们得以在书中追踪人物的行踪,尤其是教区牧师皮埃尔·克莱格,他能够轻易出入民宅,从而得以进行许多婚外情。从某种意义上说,这是一部“微观史”,因为它以小规模、人性化的细节,充实了一些通常只以概括形式存在的社会和文化特征。32

In community studies knowing the names does not necessarily mean knowing the people: family size, occupation and church membership often do little more than enable us to categorize the inhabitants of a village. But in exceptional cases the surviving sources bring individuals to life, allowing us the illusion of a direct encounter, like in a novel. Work of this kind is usually known as microhistory – a term coined by the Italian scholars who pioneered it in the 1970s.31 The most celebrated example is Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s account of life in fourteenth-century Montaillou. Drawing mainly from the records of the Inquisition, Ladurie was able to reconstruct the everyday life of the peasants of Montaillou – their social relationships, their religious and magical observances, and not just their attitudes to sex but much of their actual sex life. We are able to follow individuals through the book, notably the parish priest, Pierre Clergue, whose ready access to people’s homes enabled him to engage in many extramarital liaisons. This is a ‘microhistory’ in the sense that it fills out in small-scale and human detail some of the social and cultural features that are otherwise known only as generalizations.32

地方史不仅能赋予抽象概念以生命力,还能将通常由专家分别处理的各种主题汇聚于同一层面。本章所述的研究方法的激增带来了一个重要的整合难题:如果历史学家只提供经济或宗教的片面视角,我们如何才能全面了解一个社会?聚焦于一个仅有数百人的社区,研究者不仅可以考察生活的方方面面,还能了解这些层面如何相互关联,构成一个完整的社会体验。许多沿着这条道路发展至今的地方史,有力地打破了传统专家在研究更宏大主题时容易陷入的思维僵化。尤其对于政治史学家而言,地方史提醒他们,他们的研究对象不仅关乎国家中央机构,也关乎权威对普通民众的掌控。正如W.G.霍斯金斯所言,“地方史学家在某种程度上就像英国医学史上的老式全科医生,如今这种记忆已逐渐消逝,只存在于我们当中较为年长者的记忆中,他们将人类视为一个整体来诊治。” 33这对历史学家将各自的专业研究整合为一幅完整的历史图景这一目标具有重要意义。从宏观角度来看,这几乎是不可能完成的任务。但在城镇或乡村的范围内,这却是可能的。矛盾的是,“总体史”最终实际上指的就是地方史。这也解释了地方史如今在学术界享有的崇高地位。

Local history not only breathes life into abstractions; it can also bring together on a single canvas the varied themes that are usually treated separately by specialists. The proliferation of approaches described in this chapter presents a major problem of integration: how can we see a society in the round if historians give us only partial perspectives on economy or religion? Focusing on a single community of a few hundred people enables the researcher not only to investigate every dimension of life, but to see how they were linked together as a whole experience. The many local histories that have travelled some way along this road have acted as a powerful solvent of the rigidities to which conventional specialists working on a larger canvas are so prone. For political historians particularly, local history serves as a reminder that their subject is about not only the central institutions of the state, but also the assertion of authority over ordinary people. As W.G. Hoskins put it, ‘The local historian is in a way like the old-fashioned G.P. of English medical history, now a fading memory confined to the more elderly among us, who treated Man as a whole’.33 This has important implications for the goal of historians to integrate their specialist studies into a fully integrated picture of the past. On a grand scale it is an impossible task. But it is possible within the confines of town or village. Paradoxically, ‘total history’ turns out to mean local history. That explains its high academic standing today.

第九章

IX

在许多方面,地方史学家和全球史学家之间的距离比本章讨论的其他任何专家都要远;但即便如此,两者之间也存在着一些富有启发性的联系。认为村落社区曾经完全与世隔绝是一种误解。经济和文化的影响始终来自外部。唐纳德·赖特(Donald Wright)的著作《世界与非洲的一个小地方》(2004)或许是对地方与全球联系最引人注目的例证。该书以位于冈比亚河口的西非小王国尼乌米(Niumi)为研究对象。赖特分析了从中世纪晚期跨撒哈拉贸易到独立冈比亚发展历程中,尼乌米与全球联系所带来的影响。他的研究表明,历史学家或人类学家如果将小型社区视为与世隔绝,那就毫无意义了。

In many ways the local historian and the global historian stand further away from each other than any of the other specialists discussed in this chapter; but even here there are illuminating links to be made. It is a mistake to suppose that the village community was ever completely isolated. Economic and cultural influences always impinged from the outside. Perhaps the most striking demonstration of the links between the local and global is Donald Wright’s book, The World and a Very Small Place in Africa (2004). The subject is the tiny West African kingdom of Niumi at the mouth of the Gambia river. Wright analyses the impact of its global links from the trans-Saharan trade of the late medieval era up to the drive for development in independent Gambia. His study demonstrates that it makes little sense for historians or anthropologists to study small communities as if they were cut off from the outside world.

每部历史著作都力求在个人与社会、物质与精神、地方与全球之间取得某种平衡。而这种平衡的实现方式,则取决于研究者的选择。学术潮流往往会影响研究结果,因为历史学家们渴望顺应时代潮流,甚至力求预见潮流。如今,研究人员加入团队,拥有共同的研究目标和相应的研究经费,也变得越来越普遍。即便如此,研究方向的选择仍然极其广泛,这反映出历史研究超越了学科的界限。如今,笼统的职业标签比以往任何时候都更难以揭示历史学家实际的工作内容。如此之多的可能性有时会让人感到不知所措。但也正是这种多样性,使得历史研究成为一项如此引人入胜的事业。

Every work of history strikes some kind of balance between the individual and society, between the material and the mental, and between the local and the global. Where that balance is struck is the choice of the researcher. Academic fashion often influences the outcome since historians are keen to ride the crest of a wave, or better still to anticipate it. It is also more common today for researchers to be recruited into teams with a collective brief and research funding to match. Even so, the range of options is still extraordinarily wide, reflecting the fact that history knows no disciplinary bounds. More than ever before, the generic occupational label gives little clue as to what an individual historian actually does. The range of possibilities is sometimes experienced as overwhelming. It is also what makes the study of history such a stimulating pursuit.

黑格尔辩证法

Hegelian dialectic

格奥尔格·威廉·弗里德里希·黑格尔(1770—1831)是十九世纪早期德国最重要的哲学家。他认为,人类历史事件是由辩证法的运作所决定的——对立的力量或思想相互碰撞,最终产生综合,而综合又会受到相反的对立面的挑战。黑格尔相信,这一过程最终将导向一种基于基督教伦理道德的和谐状态。深受黑格尔影响的卡尔·马克思则“颠覆”了黑格尔的思想,他将黑格尔的思想从基督教框架中剥离出来,并将辩证法应用于历史上阶级利益的冲突,最终导致工人阶级控制经济和社会。

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) was the leading German philosopher of the early nineteenth century. He argued that human events in history were determined by the operation of dialectic – the clash of opposing forces or ideas out of which emerged a synthesis, which would in its turn be challenged by an opposing antithesis. Hegel believed that this process would lead eventually to a state of harmony based upon Christian ethics and morality. Karl Marx, who was much influenced by Hegel, ‘turned him on his head’ by divorcing Hegel’s ideas from their Christian framework and applying the dialectic model to the clash of class interests throughout history, leading ultimately to the control of economy and society by the working class.

都铎通货膨胀

Tudor inflation

十六世纪的欧洲物价持续飙升,涨势惊人,给人们的生活带来了巨大的困难。当时的民众并不清楚通货膨胀的真正原因,他们把矛头指向了各种各样的因素,从人类的贪婪到圈占公共土地放牧绵羊,不一而足。英国爱德华六世政府为了应对通货膨胀,降低了货币的流通量,但这反而导致物价进一步上涨。历史学家长期以来认为,通货膨胀是由来自美洲的大量金银涌入造成的,但如今普遍认为,这主要是由于当时人口的急剧增长所致。

Across sixteenth-century Europe there developed a steady and alarming rise in prices which caused considerable hardship. The reasons for the inflation were not clear to contemporaries, who blamed anything from human greed to the enclosure of common land to graze sheep. The English government of Edward VI responded by debasing the coinage in order to put more money into circulation, but this simply led people to put their prices up still higher. Historians long thought the inflation was caused by the influx of gold and silver bullion from the Americas, but nowadays it is thought to be a result of the huge rise in population during the period.

延伸阅读

Further reading

David Cannadine(编),《今日历史是什么?》,帕尔格雷夫出版社,2003 年。

David Cannadine (ed.), What is History Today?, Palgrave, 2003.

Peter Burke(编),《历史写作的新视角》,Polity出版社,1991年。

Peter Burke (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Polity Press, 1991.

Anna GreenKathleen Troup(编),《历史的殿堂:二十世纪历史与理论批判读本》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,1999 年。

Anna Green & Kathleen Troup (eds), The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory, Manchester University Press, 1999.

劳伦斯·斯通《重访过去与现在》,劳特利奇出版社,1987 年。

Lawrence Stone, The Past and the Present Revisited, Routledge, 1987.

Peter Burke《法国历史革命:年鉴学派 1929–89》,Polity Press,1990 年。

Peter Burke, The French Historical Revolution: The Annales School 1929–89, Polity Press, 1990.

费尔南·布罗代尔《论历史》,Weidenfeld & Nicolson,1980。

Fernand Braudel, On History, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980.

Carlo M. Cipolla《历史与经济之间:经济史导论》,Blackwell,1991 年。

Carlo M. Cipolla, Between History and Economics: An Introduction to Economic History, Blackwell, 1991.

Miles Fairburn《社会史:问题、策略和方法》,Routledge出版社,1999年。

Miles Fairburn, Social History: Problems, Strategies and Methods, Routledge, 1999.

Kate Tiller《英国地方史:导论》,第2版,萨顿,2002年。

Kate Tiller, English Local History: An Introduction, 2nd edn, Sutton, 2002.

Benedikt Stuchey & Eckhardt Fuchs (编), 《世界历史写作,1800–2000》,牛津大学出版社,2003 年。

Benedikt Stuchtey & Eckhardt Fuchs (eds), Writing World History, 1800–2000, Oxford University Press, 2003.

笔记

Notes

  1   Arthur Young 于 1789 年在佛罗伦萨撰写,引自 JR Hale(编),《英国史学的发展》,麦克米伦出版社,1967 年,第 35 页。

  1  Arthur Young writing from Florence in 1789, quoted in J.R. Hale (ed.), The Evolution of British Historiography, Macmillan, 1967, p. 35.

  2  利奥波德·冯·兰克,《塞尔维亚史》,1828 年,引自西奥多·H·冯·劳厄,《利奥波德·兰克:形成时期》,普林斯顿大学出版社,1950 年,第 56 页。

  2  Leopold von Ranke, History of Servia, 1828, quoted in Theodore H. von Laue, Leopold Ranke: The Formative Years, Princeton University Press, 1950, p. 56.

  3   Edward A. Freeman,《历史研究方法》,麦克米伦出版社,1886 年,第 44 页。

  3  Edward A. Freeman, The Methods of Historical Study, Macmillan, 1886, p. 44.

  4  刘易斯·纳米尔爵士和约翰·布鲁克,《下议院 1754–1790》,3 卷,HMSO,1964 年,标志着这项庞大事业的第一阶段。

  4  Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke, The House of Commons 1754–1790, 3 vols, HMSO, 1964, marked the first stage in this massive enterprise.

  5  该期刊于 1946 年更名为《年鉴:经济、社会、文明》

  5  The journal was renamed Annales: économies, sociétés, civilisations in 1946.

  6   RH Tawney,《乔治·昂温的讣告》(1925 年),引自 NB Harte(编),《经济史研究》,弗兰克·卡斯出版社,1971 年,第 xxvi 页。

  6  R.H. Tawney, obituary of George Unwin (1925), quoted in N.B. Harte (ed.), The Study of Economic History, Frank Cass, 1971, p. xxvi.

  7   Maurice Cowling,《劳动的影响,1920-1924》,剑桥大学出版社,1971年,第6页。

  7  Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Labour, 1920–1924, Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 6.

  8  伊恩·克肖,《希特勒》,第一卷:傲慢,艾伦·莱恩出版社,1998 年,第 xii 页。

  8  Ian Kershaw, Hitler, vol I: Hubris, Allen Lane, 1998, p. xii.

  9   Linda Colley,《伊丽莎白·马什的磨难:世界历史上的女性》,哈珀出版社,2007 年,第 xix 页。

  9  Linda Colley, The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History, Harper, 2007, p. xix.

10   GM Trevelyan,《英国社会史》 ,朗文出版​​社,1944 年,第 vii 页。GJ Renier, 《历史:其目的和方法》 ,艾伦和昂温出版社,1950 年,第 72 页,给出了几乎相同的定义。

10  G.M. Trevelyan, English Social History, Longman, 1944, p. vii. An almost identical definition is given in G.J. Renier, History: Its Purpose and Method, Allen & Unwin, 1950, p. 72.

11   GDH Cole,《英国工人阶级运动简史,1789–1947》,Allen & Unwin 出版社,1948 年,第 v–vi 页。

11  G.D.H. Cole, A Short History of the British Working-Class Movement, 1789–1947, Allen & Unwin, 1948, pp. v–vi.

12   George Rudé,《18 世纪的巴黎和伦敦》,Fontana 出版社,1970 年,第 268-292 页。

12  George Rudé, Paris and London in the 18th Century, Fontana, 1970, pp. 268–92.

13  有关历史工作坊早期所完成的代表性作品集,请参阅 Raphael Samuel(编),《人民历史与社会主义理论》,Routledge,1981 年。

13  For a representative collection of work done under the auspices of History Workshop in its early years, see Raphael Samuel (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory, Routledge, 1981.

14   Keith Wrightson,《英国社会 1580–1680》,Hutchinson,1982 年,第 12 页。

14  Keith Wrightson, English Society 1580–1680, Hutchinson, 1982, p. 12.

15  参见 Stephan Thernstrom,“关于新城市史的反思”,《代达罗斯》C,1971 年,第 359-75 页。关于英国的发展,参见 HJ Dyos,《探索城市过去》,剑桥大学出版社,1982 年。

15  See Stephan Thernstrom, ‘Reflections on the new urban history’, Daedalus, C, 1971, pp. 359–75. For British developments, see H.J. Dyos, Exploring the Urban Past, Cambridge University Press, 1982.

16  有关文献的综述,请参阅劳伦斯·斯通的《英国革命的原因,1529-1642》,劳特利奇和凯根·保罗出版社,1972 年。

16  For a review of the literature, see Lawrence Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution, 1529–1642, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972.

17  哈罗德·珀金,《现代英国社会的起源,1780-1880》,劳特利奇和凯根·保罗出版社,1969 年。

17  Harold Perkin, The Origins of Modern English Society, 1780–1880, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969.

18   EJ Hobsbawm,“从社会史到社会史”,《代达罗斯》C,1971 年,第 20-45 页。

18  E.J. Hobsbawm, ‘From social history to the history of society’, Daedalus, C, 1971, pp. 20–45.

19   EP Thompson,《见证反对野兽:威廉·布莱克与道德律》,剑桥大学出版社,1994 年。

19  E.P. Thompson, Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law, Cambridge University Press, 1994.

20   Keith Wrightson,《尘世必需品:近代早期英国的经济生活》,耶鲁大学出版社,2000 年。

20  Keith Wrightson, Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain, Yale University Press, 2000.

21   RC Floud 和 D. McCloskey(编),《1700 年以来的英国经济史》,2 卷,剑桥大学出版社,1981 年。

21  R.C. Floud and D. McCloskey (eds), The Economic History of Britain since 1700, 2 vols, Cambridge University Press, 1981.

22   RB Outhwaite,《都铎王朝和早期斯图亚特王朝时期的英国通货膨胀》,第2版,麦克米伦出版社,1982年。

22  R.B. Outhwaite, Inflation in Tudor and Early Stuart England, 2nd edn, Macmillan, 1982.

23   JJ Van-Helten,“帝国与高级金融:南非与国际金本位制,1890-1914 年”,《非洲历史杂志》第 23 卷,1982 年,第 529-48 页。

23  J.J. Van-Helten, ‘Empire and high finance: South Africa and the international gold standard, 1890–1914’, Journal of African History, XXIII, 1982, pp. 529–48.

24  这句话出自玛格丽特·斯普福德的《对比社区:十六、十七世纪的英国村民》,剑桥大学出版社,1974 年,第 xxiii 页。

24  I have taken this phrase from Margaret Spufford, Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Cambridge University Press, 1974, p. xxiii.

25   Keith Thomas,《宗教与魔法的衰落》,魏登菲尔德和尼科尔森出版社,1971 年,第 ix 页。

25  Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971, p. ix.

26   Erika Rappaport,《购物的乐趣:伦敦西区女性的崛起》,普林斯顿大学出版社,2001 年。

26  Erika Rappaport, Shopping For Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End, Princeton University Press, 2001.

27  Janet L. Abu-Lughod,《欧洲霸权之前:世界体系,公元 1250-1350 年》,牛津大学出版社,1989 年。

27  Janet L. Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony: the World System, A.D. 1250–1350, Oxford University Press, 1989.

28   Martin Daunton,《英国与全球化自 1850 年以来,I:建立全球秩序。1850–1914》,皇家历史学会会刊,第 6 卷,第 16,2006 年。

28  Martin Daunton, ‘Britain and globalization since 1850, I: Creating a global order. 1850–1914’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, XVI, 2006.

29   CC Bayly,《现代世界的诞生,1780-1914》,Blackwell,2004 年,第 41-47 页。

29  C.C. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914, Blackwell, 2004, pp. 41–47.

30   David Levine 和 Keith Wrightson,《工业社会的形成:威克姆,1560–1765》,牛津大学出版社,1991 年。

30  David Levine and Keith Wrightson, The Making of an Industrial Society: Whickham, 1560–1765, Oxford University Press, 1991.

31  参见卡洛·金兹堡,《奶酪与虫子:十六世纪磨坊主的宇宙》,劳特利奇和凯根·保罗出版社,1980 年。

31  See especially Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

32   Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie,《蒙塔尤:法国乡村的卡特里派和天主教徒,1294-1324》,企鹅出版社,1976 年。

32  Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village, 1294–1324, Penguin, 1976.

33   WG Hoskins,《英国地方史:过去与未来》,莱斯特大学出版社,1966 年,第 21 页。

33  W.G. Hoskins, English Local History: The Past and the Future, Leicester University Press, 1966, p. 21.

第四章

Chapter Four

原材料

The raw materials

学生很少能直接接触到原始的历史资料。考试试卷和教科书中的摘录往往篇幅短小,并附有标签,与原文相去甚远。现代历史学家究竟能获取哪些类型的史料?这些史料是如何流传下来的?这又会如何影响它们的实用性?本章将更全面地阐述历史学家常用史料的来源及其存在的问题。

Students rarely work with historical sources in their original state. Examination papers and textbooks contain short, labelled extracts, which bear little resemblance to the originals. What sort of sources are available to the modern historian? How did they come to be made available, and how might this affect their usefulness? This chapter gives a fuller idea of the provenance of, and problems with, the sort of sources historians habitually use.

S人们出于各种各样的动机和兴趣关注过去,可以说历史涵盖了每个时期、每个地点的人类经验。过去任何一部分都不能被排除在历史知识的范畴之外。但是,历史研究的深入程度取决于历史证据的可用性。无论历史学家主要关注的是重现还是解释,是为历史本身而研究,还是为了从中获得对当下的启示,他或她最终能够取得的成就首先取决于现存史料的数量和性质。因此,任何对历史学家工作的描述都必须从史料入手。本章将介绍文献材料的主要类别,阐述它们的产生过程、流传至今的方式以及学者可以获取它们的形式。

Such is the range of motives and the variety of interests that draw people to the past that history can be said to embrace the human experience of every place and period. No part of that past can be dismissed as falling outside the proper domain of historical knowledge. But how far it can be made the subject of well-founded research depends on the availability of historical evidence. Whether the historian’s main concern is with re-creation or explanation, with the past for its own sake or for the light it can shed on the present, what he or she can actually achieve is determined in the first instance by the extent and character of the surviving sources. Accordingly it is with the sources that any account of the historian’s work must begin. This chapter describes the main categories of documentary material, showing how they came into being, how they have survived down to the present, and in what form they are available to the scholar.

I

专业资源和技能

Specialist sources and skills

历史资料涵盖了人类留下的所有过往活动的证据——文字和口述、地貌和实物、美术作品以及摄影和电影。在人文和社会科学领域,历史学因其资料的丰富多样性而独树一帜,每一种资料都需要专业知识才能掌握。研究英国革命战争的军事史学家可以考察十七世纪遗留下来的武器和盔甲、战场地形以及双方的军事公文。要全面了解1926年大罢工,就需要研究政府和工会的档案、报刊和广播,以及收集幸存者的证词。重建非洲前殖民时代的王国,不仅需要挖掘其都城遗址,还需要参考当时欧洲或阿拉伯访客的观察记录以及代代相传的口述传统。任何一位历史学家都不可能掌握所有这些资料。其中技术性较强的部分已发展成为特定专业领域的工作。古代遗址的发掘和出土文物的解读是考古学家的职责,如今他们还会借助航拍摄影师和化学分析师的帮助。视觉艺术领域对应的专家是艺术史学家,尽管艺术史与历史学之间的交叉领域日益增多(详见第九)。

Historical sources encompass every kind of evidence that human beings have left of their past activities – the written word and the spoken word, the shape of the landscape and the material artefact, the fine arts as well as photography and film. Among the humanities and social sciences history is unique in the variety of its source materials, each calling for specialist expertise. The military historian of the English Civil War can examine the arms and armour surviving from the seventeenth century and the terrain over which the battles were fought, as well as the military dispatches of each side. A rounded picture of the General Strike of 1926 calls for a study of government and trade union records, the press and broadcasting, together with the collection of testimonies from survivors. The reconstruction of a pre-colonial kingdom in black Africa is likely to depend not only on the excavation of its capital but also on the contemporary observations of European or Arab visitors and the oral traditions handed down over many generations. No single historian can possibly master all these tools. The more technical of them have become the province of distinct specialisms. The excavation of ancient sites and the interpretation of the material remains found there is the business of the archaeologist, assisted these days by the aerial photographer and the chemical analyst. In the case of the visual arts the equivalent specialist is the art historian, though there is an increasing overlap with the discipline of history (considered in Chapter 9).

文物

artefact

任何过去遗留下来的物品。

Any object left over from the past.

总罢工

General Strike

1926 年 5 月,一场重大的劳资纠纷几乎使英国所有工业陷入停滞。这场纠纷始于采矿业,但随着其他工会站出来支持矿工,纠纷迅速蔓延开来。

A major industrial dispute that brought virtually all of Britain’s industry to a halt in May 1926. The dispute began in the mining industry but spread when other trade unions came out in support of the miners.

过去四十年间,历史学家声称精通的史料范围无疑扩大了。如今,地名、地貌特征,以及——就近代史而言——电影,都成为了史料来源。口述证词如今也已被公认为历史学家的合法史料来源(参见第十一章)。然而,历史研究几乎始终完全依赖于历史学家能够从文献或印刷材料中解读的内容。兰克在世时,历史研究被确立为一项专业学科,这一特点也得到了进一步的印证。对大多数历史学家而言,研究工作主要在图书馆和档案馆中进行。

During the past forty years the range of sources in which historians claim expertise has certainly increased. It now includes place-names, landscape patterns and – for recent history – film. Oral testimony is now fully established as a legitimate source for historians (see Chapter 11). The fact remains, however, that the study of history has nearly always been based squarely on what the historian can read in documents or printed material. That emphasis was confirmed when historical research was placed on a professional footing during Ranke’s lifetime. For the majority of historians, research is an activity that goes on in libraries and archives.

文字

The written word

原因并非仅仅在于学术界的保守主义。从中世纪盛期(约公元1000年至1300年)开始,文字的保存数量远超其他任何西方历史史料。十五、十六世纪不仅见证了国家和其他机构记录保存的显著增长,也见证了印刷术的迅速普及,这促进了各种形式的文字创作,并改变了文字的保存前景。文字史料通常在时间、地点和作者方面都非常精确,它们能够以其他任何史料都无法企及的方式揭示个体的思想和行为。只需阅读一些几乎没有任何文字记录的社会——例如铁器时代的英国或中世纪的津巴布韦——就能明白,当历史失去了其主要史料来源时,会多么缺乏鲜活的生命力。此外,文字历来服务于多种不同的用途——信息、宣传、个人交流、私人反思和创作表达——所有这些都可能与历史学家息息相关。对那些来自一个思维习惯与我们今天对批判能力的要求截然不同的时代的文本的解读,这些文本服务于各种各样的功能。高度重视史料。书面资料既是最有价值的,而且(在大多数情况下)也是最丰富的。因此,历史学家很少考虑其他资料也就不足为奇了。

The reason is not just academic conservatism. From the High Middle Ages (c.1000–1300) onwards, the written word survives in greater abundance than any other source for Western history. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries witnessed not only a marked growth in record-keeping by the state and other corporate bodies but also the rapid spread of printing, which encouraged literate production of all kinds and transformed its prospects of survival. Written sources are usually precise as regards time, place and authorship, and they reveal the thoughts and actions of individual men and women as no other source can do. One has only to read an account of a society for which virtually no written records exist – for example Iron Age Britain or medieval Zimbabwe – to see how lacking in human vitality history can be when denied its principal source material. Moreover, the written word has always served many different purposes – information, propaganda, personal communication, private reflection and creative release – all of which may have relevance for the historian. The interpretation of texts serving a variety of functions from an age whose habits of mind differed sharply from our own calls for critical abilities of a very high order. Written sources are at the same time the most rewarding and (in most cases) the most plentiful. Small wonder, then, that historians seldom look elsewhere.

中世纪津巴布韦

medieval Zimbabwe

中世纪的津巴布韦王国在十三至十五世纪是南部非洲的主要强国。其位于大津巴布韦的皇家宫殿遗址气势恢宏,对那些认为非洲本土文化本质上不如欧洲文化的白人殖民者构成了严峻的挑战。

The medieval kingdom of Zimbabwe was a major power in southern Africa in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. The impressive stone ruins of its royal palace at Great Zimbabwe posed a serious challenge to those white settlers who dismissed indigenous African culture as intrinsically inferior to that of Europeans.

档案馆藏对历史研究至关重要。历史学家不仅要谨慎对待史料,还要记住为什么有些史料能够进入档案馆,而有些则不能。(Getty Images/Time & Life Pictures)

Archival holdings are essential to historical scholarship. Not only do historians have to treat their sources carefully, they have to remember how it is that some sources made their way into the archives while others did not. (Getty Images/Time & Life Pictures)

以书面材料作为主要历史资料来源的做法颇为复杂,因为历史学家们也通过同样的媒介来传播他们的研究成果。无论是在选择研究课题还是最终成书时,历史学家们都会或多或少地受到前人著作的影响,他们接受前人发现的大部分证据,但也会更加有选择地接受他们对证据的解读。然而,当我们阅读一位历史学家的著作时,我们与所研究时期的原始资料之间存在着一定的距离——如果这位历史学家仅仅依赖于其他历史学家的著作,那么这种距离就更远了。评判任何历史著作的首要标准,是其对历史的解读与所有现有证据的一致性程度;一旦新的史料被发现,或者旧史料被赋予新的解读,即使是最负盛名的著作也可能最终被弃置一旁。从某种意义上说,现代历史学的根基并非在于前人留下的遗产,而在于对原始资料的不断重新评估。正因如此,历史学家们才将原始资料视为一手资料。他们及其前人所著述的一切历史都属于二手资料。本书的大部分内容都围绕二手资料展开——探讨历史学家如何提出问题、得出结论,以及我们作为读者应该如何评价他们的工作。但首先,有必要更仔细地审视一下这些原始资料。

The use of written materials as the principal historical source is complicated by the fact that historians communicate their findings through the same medium. Both in their choice of research topic and in their finished work, historians are influenced to a greater or lesser extent by what their predecessors have written, accepting much of the evidence they uncovered and, rather more selectively, the interpretations they put upon it. But when we read the work of a historian we stand at one remove from the original sources of the period in question – and further away still if that historian has been content to rely on the writings of other historians. The first test by which any historical work must be judged is how far its interpretation of the past is consistent with all the available evidence; when new sources are discovered or old ones are read in a new light, even the most prestigious book may end on the scrapheap. In a real sense the modern discipline of history rests not on what has been handed down by earlier historians, but on a constant reassessment of the original sources. It is for this reason that historians regard the original sources as primary. Everything that they and their predecessors have written about the past counts as a secondary source. Most of this book is concerned with secondary sources – with how historians formulate problems and reach conclusions, and how we as readers should evaluate their work. But first it is necessary to examine the raw materials a little more closely.

一手资料和二手资料

Primary and secondary sources

区分一手资料和二手资料对历史研究至关重要,但其界限远比乍看之下复杂,不同权威人士对二者的具体划分也存在差异。“一手资料”指的是与事件或思想同时期的证据。然而,我们对“同时期”的定义应该延伸到什么程度呢?如果是一周甚至一个月后才报道的对话,人们自然不会质疑其真实性,但如果是二十年后撰写的自传中对同一事件的描述呢?又该如何界定一场骚乱的事件性质?如果作者并非事发当时的亲历者,而是在骚乱发生后不久撰写的,我们又该如何看待他对骚乱的记述呢?完全依赖于传闻?尽管一些纯粹主义者将非目击者的证词视为二手资料,更合理的做法是采用广义的定义,同时也要认识到某些资料比其他资料更具“一手”性质。历史学家通常会优先选择在时间和地点上最接近相关事件的资料。但距离事件较远的资料也有其自身的价值。历史学家往往对同时代人的想法与实际发生的事情同样感兴趣:例如,英国对法国大革命的反应对英国的政治氛围产生了深远的影响,从这个角度来看,当时在英国流传的关于巴黎事件的往往含糊不清的报道是不可或缺的资料。正如这个例子所示,将某个资料称为“一手”并不意味着对其可靠性或是否公正无偏见做出任何判断。许多原始资料都不准确、混乱、基于传闻或意在误导,而且(正如下一章将要展示的那样)仔细审查资料是否存在此类歪曲是历史学家工作的重要组成部分。

The distinction between primary and secondary sources, fundamental though it is to historical research, is rather less clear-cut than it might appear at first sight, and the precise demarcation varies among different authorities. By ‘original sources’ is meant evidence contemporary with the event or thought to which it refers. But how far should our definition of ‘contemporary’ be stretched? No one would quibble about a conversation reported a week or even a month after it took place, but what about the version of the same episode in an autobiography composed twenty years later? And how should we categorize an account of a riot written shortly afterwards, but by someone who was not present and relied entirely on hearsay? Although some purists regard the testimony of anyone who was not an eyewitness as a secondary source,1 it makes better sense to apply a broad definition but to recognize at the same time that some sources are more ‘primary’ than others. The historian will usually prefer those sources that are closest in time and place to the events in question. But sources more remote from the action have their own significance. The historian is often as much interested in what contemporaries thought was happening as in what actually happened: British reactions to the French Revolution, for example, had a profound influence on the climate of politics in Britain, and from this point of view the often garbled reports of events in Paris which circulated in Britain at the time are an indispensable source. As this example suggests, to speak of a source as ‘primary’ implies no judgement of its reliability or freedom from bias. Many primary sources are inaccurate, muddled, based on hearsay or intended to mislead, and (as the next chapter will show) it is a vital part of the historian’s work to scrutinize the source for distortions of this kind.

当代的

contemporary

字面意思是“同时”。在历史术语中,它通常指所研究时期发生的事件或人物。

Literally ‘at the same time as’. In historical terminology it usually refers to events or people from the period being studied.

英国对法国大革命的反应

British reactions to the French Revolution

1789年法国大革命爆发时,英国舆论最初持支持态度。然而,随着法国局势迅速恶化,陷入暴力和恐怖统治,英国舆论很快转为坚决敌视。但有一小群政治激进分子始终支持这场革命。这两种截然不同的反应也反映在当时英国历史学家的态度中。

When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, opinion in Britain was initially supportive. However, it quickly became implacably hostile as events in France descended into rule by violence and terror. A small group of political radicals, however, remained consistently supportive of the Revolution. These two responses continue to be mirrored in the attitudes of British historians of the period.

区分一手资料和二手资料的复杂性还体现在同一部作品中,因为有时一手资料和二手资料会同时出现。中世纪编年史通常以从创世到基督生平的世界历史叙述开篇,其依据是广为人知的权威记载;但现代历史学家最看重的是它们逐年记录的时事。同样,一部作品在某种语境下可能是一手资料,而在另一种语境下则可能是二手资料:麦考利的 《英国史》(1848-1855)是一部二手资料,其声誉已被现代研究大大削弱;但对于任何研究维多利亚早期精英政治和历史观念的人来说,麦考利的这本书——在当时是畅销书——都是一部重要的一手资料。这些例子或许暗示了人们常常认为的“历史文献”是指正式、庄重的历史记录。诚然,这类记录更容易流传下来,但“历史文献”一词的含义应该尽可能广泛。我们每个人每天都在创造潜在的历史文献——财务账目、私人信件,甚至是购物清单。它们能否真正成为历史文献,取决于它们能否保存下来,以及未来的学者是否会将它们用作一手证据。

The distinction between primary and secondary is further complicated by the fact that sometimes primary and secondary material appear in the same work. Medieval chronicles usually began with an account of world history from the Creation to the life of Christ, based on well-known authorities; but what modern historians value them most for is the entries that they recorded year by year concerning current events. Equally, a work can be primary in one context and secondary in another: Macaulay’s History of England (1848–55) is a secondary source whose reputation has been much undermined by modern research; but for anyone studying the political and historical assumptions of the early Victorian elite, Macaulay’s book, in its day a bestseller, is a significant primary source. These examples might suggest what is often assumed, that ‘historical documents’ are the formal, dignified records of the past. It is true that records of this kind are more likely to endure, but the term should carry the widest possible reference. Every day all of us create what are potentially historical documents – financial accounts, private correspondence, even shopping lists. Whether they actually become historical documents depends on whether they survive and whether they are used as primary evidence by scholars of the future.

中世纪编年史

medieval chronicles

中世纪编年史是叙事性文字,通常经过精心撰写,通俗易懂。我们并不清楚当时的编年史作者投入了多少研究,但后世的编年史家和作家经常会参考它们。

Medieval chronicles were written narratives, often skilfully crafted into a highly readable form. We do not know how much research went into their writing, though they were often consulted by later chroniclers and writers.

麦考利的《英国史》

Macaulay’s History of England

虽然这部著作被称为《英国史》,但麦考利的这部作品实际上几乎完全集中于1688年詹姆斯二世国王被推翻以及1714年第一位汉诺威国王乔治一世即位之后的重要宪政变革。

Although called a History of England, Macaulay’s work in fact concentrates almost entirely on the important constitutional changes following the overthrow of King James II in 1688 and the accession of the first Hanoverian king, George I, in 1714.

为了理解现存的大量原始资料,首要条件是建立某种分类系统。目前常用的文献分类方法有两种。第一种区分已出版的文献(在现代通常指印刷文献)和未出版的文献或手稿。第二种方法则强调文献的作者,区分政府出版的文献和公司、社团或私人出版的文献。这两种方法都符合编目员所需的精确性,历史学家在其著作末尾发布的参考文献通常也遵循这些分类方法。然而,历史学家在研究过程中实际应用的标准虽然与这两种分类方法相关,但却远没有那么泾渭分明。在历史学家的文献等级体系中,那些直接来源于日常商业活动或社会交往的文献最为重要,因为它们留下了诠释的空间。在近代以来的每个时代,人们都试图通过书籍、传单和报纸来理解他们所处的时代,并解读历史事件的脉络。这类陈述能让我们深入了解当时的社会心态,但对历史学家而言,它们无法取代信件、日记和备忘录所提供的直接、日常的思想和行动证据:这些才是历史的“记录”典范。历史学家希望尽可能地成为事件的亲历者,而不是将自己置于叙述者或评论者的掌控之下。最具启发性的史料往往是那些并非为后世而写的文字。马克·布洛赫称之为“证人无意间提供的证词”;如同偷听一般引人入胜。

In order to make sense of the vast mass of surviving primary sources, the first requirement is some system of classification. Two types are in common use. The first draws a distinction between the published – which in the modern period has usually meant printed – and the unpublished or manuscript source. The second emphasizes instead the authorship of the sources, drawing a distinction between those produced by governments and those produced by corporations, associations or private individuals. Each of these methods lends itself to the precision required by the cataloguer, and bibliographies published by historians at the end of their works are normally arranged along these lines. But the criteria that historians actually apply in the course of their research, although related to these two types of classification, are rather less cut and dried. In the historian’s hierarchy of sources those that carry most weight are the ones that arise directly from everyday business or social intercourse, leaving open the task of interpretation. In every recent age men and women have sought to make sense of their times, and to interpret the pattern of events through books, broadsheets and newspapers. Such statements offer valuable insights into the mentality of the age, but for the historian they are no substitute for the direct, day-to-day evidence of thought and action provided by the letter, the diary and the memorandum: these are the ‘records’ of history par excellence. Historians wish to be as nearly as possible observers of the events in question; they do not want to deliver themselves into the hands of a narrator or commentator. The most revealing source is that which was written with no thought for posterity. Marc Bloch called this ‘the evidence of witnesses in spite of themselves’;2 it has all the fascination of eavesdropping.

报纸

broadsheets

一种早期报纸,设计用于张贴在公共场所。

A form of early newspaper designed to be pinned up in a public place.

备忘录

memorandum

内部信息或备忘录,指在办公室或机构内部发送的信息或通知。政府部门的备忘录可以非常详细地反映政策的制定过程。

An internal message or note sent within an office or institution. Memoranda from government offices can give a very detailed picture of the development of policy.

马克·布洛赫(1886–1944)

Marc Bloch (1886–1944)

法国中世纪史学家。他是年鉴学派的创始人之一,该学派致力于将历史研究与对地理及其他学科作用的深入理解相结合。他还撰写了一部关于史学技艺的精辟著作。二战期间,他曾参与法国抵抗运动,但在诺曼底登陆前不久被俘并遭枪决。

French medievalist historian. He was one of the founders of the Annales school, which sought to link the study of history with an in-depth appreciation of the role of geography and other disciplines. He also wrote a perceptive study of The Historian’s Craft. During the Second World War he fought in the French resistance, but was captured and shot shortly before the D-Day landings.

II

叙事和回忆录

Narratives and memoirs

然而,我们首先要从为后世而撰写的第一手资料入手。这些资料往往最容易获取,因为它们的保存很少是偶然的。它们通常具有文学性,读来令人愉悦。它们提供了现成的年表、连贯的事件选择以及强烈的时代氛围。它们的不足之处在于,它们只记录了当时人们认为值得注意的事情——而这些可能并非我们今天所感兴趣的。在19世纪兰克式革命之前,第一手资料……历史学家往往依赖这类史料。研究罗马史时,他们求助于凯撒、塔西佗和苏埃托尼乌斯;而研究中世纪史时,他们则参考《盎格鲁-撒克逊编年史》以及十三世纪马修·帕里斯和十四世纪让·弗鲁瓦萨尔等人的著作。现代历史学家也并未轻视这些叙事性史料。它们之所以至今仍具有重要意义,是因为它们保存于那些史料匮乏的时期。中世纪早期的编年史大多由缺乏公共事务亲身经历的僧侣撰写,但从十二世纪开始,越来越多的世俗神职人员加入编年史的行列。这些神职人员曾在国王身居要职,能够从内部视角记录政治历史。威尔士的杰拉尔德是一位皇家牧师,在12世纪80年代亨利二世统治末期与他相识。以下这段文字生动地展现了这位英格兰最杰出的国王之一的旺盛精力:

We begin, however, with primary sources written for the benefit of posterity. These tend to be the most accessible because their survival was seldom left to chance. Often they have a literary quality that makes them a pleasure to read. They provide a ready-made chronology, a coherent selection of events, and a strong sense of period atmosphere. Their drawback is that they recount only what people found worthy of note about their own age – which may not be what interests us today. Prior to the Rankean revolution in the nineteenth century, it was on primary sources of this kind that historians tended to rely. For Roman history they turned to Caesar, Tacitus and Suetonius, while medievalists drew on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the works of men such as Matthew Paris in the thirteenth century and Jean Froissart in the fourteenth. Nor do modern historians disparage these narrative sources. They owe their continuing importance to the fact that they survive from periods that have left only a limited amount of record sources. In the Middle Ages most of the early chronicles were written by monks without personal experience of public affairs, but increasingly from the twelfth century they were joined by secular clergy who had served the king in responsible positions and could to some extent record political history from the inside. Gerald of Wales was a royal chaplain who became acquainted with Henry II towards the end of his reign in the 1180s. The following passage well conveys the restless energy of one of England’s most remarkable kings:

英格兰国王亨利二世,肤色红润,满脸雀斑,头颅硕大圆润,灰色的眼睛炯炯有神,愤怒时会布满血丝,面容凶狠,嗓音沙哑低沉。他的脖子略微向前突出于肩膀,胸膛宽阔。他身材宽阔方正,双臂强壮有力。他体格敦实,略显肥胖,这与其说是节制而非放纵所致,不如说是天生的,但他通过锻炼来控制体重……

Henry II, king of England, was a man of reddish, freckled complexion with a large round head, grey eyes which glowed fiercely and grew bloodshot in anger, a fiery countenance and a harsh, cracked voice. His neck was somewhat thrust forward from his shoulders, his chest was broad and square, his arms strong and powerful. His frame was stocky with a pronounced tendency to corpulence, due rather to nature than to indulgence, which he tempered by exercise …

在战乱频仍的年代,他几乎没有给自己留一丝喘息之机来处理那些遗留的事务;而在和平时期,他也丝毫不肯享受片刻的宁静与休憩。他酷爱狩猎,黎明即起,骑马穿梭于荒原,深入森林,攀登山巅,就这样度过他那躁动不安的一天。傍晚归来后,人们很少见到他坐下,无论是在晚餐前还是晚餐后。如此艰苦卓绝的奔波之后,他常常站着不动,让整个朝廷的人都疲惫不堪

In times of war, which frequently threatened, he gave himself scarcely a modicum of quiet to deal with those matters of business which were left over, and in times of peace he allowed himself neither tranquility nor repose. He was addicted to the chase beyond measure; at crack of dawn he was off on horseback, traversing waste lands, penetrating forests and climbing the mountain-tops, and so he passed restless days. At evening on his return he was rarely seen to sit down either before or after supper. After such great and wearisome exertions he would wear out the whole court by continual standing.3

自传本质上是编年史的现代变体,作者的个性被置于聚光灯下。这种文体由文艺复兴时期具有自觉意识的意大利人发明,深受艺术家、作家,尤其是政治家的青睐。自传的魅力在于它是内部人士的回忆录。事实上,它们往往是唯一可获得的第一手资料,因为在所有国家,近期政府记录都不对公众开放(见第113页);在英国,前内阁大臣在撰写回忆录时,可以查阅与其任期相关的官方文件,但不得引用或摘录其中的内容。然而,作者的目的与其说是提供客观的叙述,不如说是事后为自己的行为辩护,并在历史的审判中为自己辩护。自传或许能深刻揭示作者的心态和价值观,但作为事件记录,它们往往不够准确,且带有选择性,甚至到了歪曲的地步。这一点在温斯顿·丘吉尔身上体现得尤为明显。即便在他担任首相期间,他就打算撰写一份关于其战时领导的权威记录。通过二战结束后不久出版的巨著回忆录,他成功地塑造了自己略带自夸色彩的战争史版本。多年以后,历史学家才逐渐意识到这种歪曲的程度。时至今日,丘吉尔在公众心目中的形象仍然基本是他本人在战时及战后灌输的

The autobiography is essentially a modern variant of the chronicle, with the personality of the author brought to the front of the stage. Invented by the self-conscious Italians of the Renaissance,4 this form is favoured by artists, writers and perhaps most of all by politicians. The fascination of autobiographies derives from the fact that they are the recollections of an insider. Indeed they often provide the only available first-hand account, because in all countries recent government records are closed to public inspection (see p. 113); in Britain former Cabinet ministers, when writing their memoirs, are permitted to consult official papers relating to their term of office, though they may not cite or quote from them. But the author’s purpose is less to offer an objective account than to justify his or her actions in retrospect and to provide evidence for the defence before the bar of history. Autobiographies may be very revealing of mentality and values, but as a record of events they are often inaccurate and selective to the point of distortion. This was pre-eminently true of Winston Churchill who, even while he was Prime Minster, intended to write the definitive record of his wartime leadership. Through his voluminous memoirs, published soon after the Second World War, he successfully established his own somewhat self-aggrandizing version of events. It was many years before the extent of the distortion became clear to historians. Even today Churchill’s popular image remains pretty much what he himself planted in the public mind during and after the war.5

《盎格鲁-撒克逊编年史》

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

这是一部由不同修道院的僧侣们编纂的、详细记录盎格鲁-撒克逊英格兰重大事件的年度编年史,奉阿尔弗雷德大帝之命汇编而成。长期以来,人们一直认为它是一部客观的事件记述,但历史学家现在认为它严重偏袒阿尔弗雷德大帝,很可能是受其指示所为。

A detailed yearly chronicle of major events in Anglo-Saxon England compiled by monks at different monasteries and abbeys and brought together on the orders of King Alfred the Great. It was long thought to be an objective account of events, but historians now see it as heavily slanted in King Alfred’s favour, possibly on his instructions.

马修·帕里斯(约1200年—约159年)

Matthew Paris (c.1200–c.59)

圣奥尔本斯修道院的修士,也是中世纪英格兰最重要的编年史之一的作者。帕里斯似乎在编纂这部编年史的过程中采访过一些重要人物。

Monk of St Albans and author of one of the most important chronicles of medieval England. Paris seems to have spoken to leading figures in the course of compiling his chronicle.

让·弗鲁瓦萨(Jean Froissart,约 1335 年–约 1404 年)

Jean Froissart (c.1335–c.1404)

这位法国编年史家曾在英国国王爱德华三世的宫廷中长期居住。他的编年史涵盖了英法百年战争的早期阶段。与他后期的记述相比,他早期的版本更倾向于英国一方。

French chronicler, he spent long periods in England at the court of King Edward III. His chronicle covers the early period of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France. His early version was more sympathetic to the English than his later accounts.

世俗神职人员

secular clergy

不属于修道院的神父。

Priests who do not belong to a monastic order.

威尔士的杰拉尔德(1146–1223)

Gerald of Wales (1146–1223)

杰拉尔德·德·巴里,圣大卫主教,著有威尔士和爱尔兰游记。由于抱负受挫,他转而反对英国赞助人,为争取威尔士独立而与英格兰国王爱德华一世作战。

Gerald de Barri, Bishop of St David’s and writer of descriptions of Wales and Ireland. Frustrated ambition led him to turn against his English patrons and fight for Welsh independence against King Edward I.

亨利二世(1135–89 年)

Henry II (1135–89)

亨利八世是英格兰金雀花王朝(又称安茹王朝,因其故乡法国安茹而得名)的第一位国王。他最广为人知的是与坎特伯雷大主教托马斯·贝克特之间灾难性的争执,但他同时也对法律体系进行了重大改革。

First of the Plantagenet Kings of England (also known as Angevins, from their native Anjou in France). Henry is best known for his disastrous feud with Archbishop Thomas à Becket, but he also instituted major reforms in the legal system.

博韦的文森茨,中世纪博学多才的历史学家。尽管中世纪的编年史家会查阅文献,有时还能与他们笔下的一些重要人物交谈,但他们的首要任务是提供生动的叙述。对史料进行严谨分析的历史学方法,则是在十九世纪才发展起来的。(akg-images,伦敦)

Vincenz of Beauvais, medieval polyhistorian. Although medieval chroniclers did consult documents and were sometimes able to speak with some of the major figures they wrote about, their priority was to provide a lively narrative. The historical discipline of measured analysis of source material was a much later, nineteenth-century development. (akg-images, London)

与此同时,将出版的回忆录视为上层阶级的专属也是错误的。到19世纪中叶,在英国,回忆录也已成为有文化的工匠们公认的表达方式。正如大卫·文森特所指出的,自传的写作目的在于传达……这部作品旨在展现劳动者(以及较少见的劳动女性)的人性,并挑战人们对工人阶级生活的常见误解。这种自豪感和愤慨之情在激进作家托马斯·哈代1832年出版的自传开篇便显露无疑:

At the same time it would be a mistake to think of the published memoir as an upper-class preserve. In Britain by the mid-nineteenth century it had become a recognized means of expression for the literate artisan as well. As David Vincent has shown, autobiographies were written in order to convey the humanity of the working man (and, more rarely, the working woman), and also to challenge common misconceptions about working-class life. The pride and resentment are evident in the opening lines of the radical Thomas Hardy’s autobiography, published in 1832:

任何一个人,无论出于何种原因,其行为一旦被世人所知,都必然会在许多方面遭到歪曲。因此,这样的人无疑有权利,不,更应该有义务,向后世留下对其行为真正动机的真实记录。所以,以下的回忆录无需任何辩解,也无需任何辩解。6

As every man whose actions, from whatever cause, have acquired publicity, is sure, in many things, to be misrepresented, such a man has an undoubted right, nay, it becomes his duty, to leave to posterity a true record of the real motives that influenced his conduct. The following Memoir, therefore, requires no apology, and none is offered.6

仅在 1790 年至 1850 年期间,就有超过 140 件此类作品流传至今。

Over 140 such works have survived from the period 1790–1850 alone.

托马斯·哈代(1752–1832)

Thomas Hardy (1752–1832)

苏格兰激进分子。1794年,在与革命法国的战争期间,他被控犯有叛国罪,后被判无罪。不要与同名小说家混淆。

Scottish radical. He was accused and acquitted of high treason in 1794, during the wars with Revolutionary France. Not to be confused with the novelist of the same name.

官方文件和报纸

Official papers and newspapers

当然,人们为后世撰写的编年史和回忆录,在任何时期出版的书籍中都只占极小一部分。大多数出版物的出版并非着眼于后世,而是为了告知、影响、误导或娱乐当时的读者。十五世纪印刷术的发明极大地促进了此类著作的传播,而民众识字率的提高也增加了对这类著作的需求。各国政府迅速从这场通信革命中获利,到了十九世纪,政策声明、宣传品以及有关贸易、财政和支出的信息摘要都源源不断地从官方印刷厂涌现。在英国,这些出版物中最令人印象深刻的或许是自1801年起每十年出版一次的人口普查报告,以及自19世纪30年代起设立的皇家委员会的报告。这些委员会负责收集证据,并就公共卫生和工作条件等重大社会问题提出建议。另一项备受关注的官方出版物是议会会议记录。托马斯·汉萨德于1812年开始以私人名义出版上议院和下议院的辩论记录(尽管并非首创)。1909年,政府通过皇家文具局接管了该系列出版物,使其采用了现代形式;第一人称逐字记录成为惯例。鲜有其他资料能如此出色地展现政治话语的公开面貌。

The chronicles and memoirs that people write for future generations are, of course, only a small minority of what is published in any period. Most publications are issued with little thought for posterity; they are rather intended to inform, influence, mislead or entertain contemporaries. The invention of printing in the fifteenth century greatly facilitated the dissemination of such writings, while the growth of literacy among the laity increased the demand for them. Governments were quick to profit from the revolution in communications, and by the nineteenth century statements of policy, propaganda and digests of information on trade, revenue and expenditure were flowing from the official presses. In Britain perhaps the most impressive of these publications were the census reports published every ten years from 1801, and the reports of royal commissions set up from the 1830s onwards to take evidence and make recommendations on major social problems such as public health and conditions of work. Another official publication of great interest is that of the reports of parliamentary proceedings. Thomas Hansard began publication of the debates in the Lords and Commons as a private venture in 1812 (though not quite the first of its kind). The series assumed its modern format in 1909, when the government, through His Majesty’s Stationery Office, took it over; first-person, verbatim reporting became the rule. Few other sources convey so well the public face of political discourse.

人口普查报告

census reports

自1801年以来,英国每十年定期进行人口普查,只有1941年因战争需要而中断。人口普查报告包含详细的评论和统计表格,因此对社会历史学家来说尤为有用。

The census has been held in Britain at regular ten-year intervals ever since 1801, except for 1941, when the demands of war made it impossible. Census reports include detailed commentary as well as statistical tables, which make them peculiarly useful to social historians.

皇家委员会

royal commissions

由君主(即政府)下令设立的调查委员会,负责调查某一问题。委员会收集证人证词,并撰写详细报告。证人询问记录和报告通常都会公布。

A committee of inquiry set up at the command of the monarch (i.e. of the government) to investigate an issue. Commissions take evidence from witnesses and then produce detailed reports. Both the transcriptions of questioning of witnesses and the reports are usually published.

汉萨德

Hansard

《议会史》以其创始人托马斯·汉萨德(1776-1833)的名字命名,指的是每日记录议会议事过程的书面报告。早期版本采用转述(例如“他说他会……”)的方式,有时甚至描述议会厅内的场景,而非逐字逐句地复述发言内容。速记技术的发展使得记者能够准确地记录发言内容。

Named after its founder, Thomas Hansard (1776–1833), this is the name given to the daily written reports on proceedings in Parliament. In its early versions, the Parliamentary History wrote in reported speech (‘He said he would …’) and sometimes described the scene in the chamber rather than reproducing the exact word. The development of shorthand enabled reporters to reproduce the exact words spoken.

逐字

verbatim

逐字转述。

Reported word for word.

但对历史学家而言,最重要的已出版一手资料是报刊,英国报刊的历史可以追溯到很久以前。报纸的历史可以追溯到十八世纪初,第一份日报创刊于1702年。报纸具有三重价值。首先,它们记录了当时最具影响力的政治和社会观点;事实上,最早的报纸源于内战和英联邦时期(1642-1660年)蓬勃发展的宣传册传统,其内容几乎仅限于此,如今人们记住它们,是因为艾迪生、斯蒂尔和斯威夫特等人的精彩论战。时至今日,伦敦各大日报的社论和读者来信栏目仍然是了解当时主流舆论的最佳途径——当然,前提是要考虑到报纸的编辑倾向。其次,报纸提供了每日事件的记录。十九世纪,报纸的这一功能得到了更充分的发挥,尤其是在19世纪50年代电报发展之后,身处异地的记者能够将稿件一写完就发回国内。《泰晤士报》的W·H·罗素是最早利用这一通讯革命的记者之一。他在1854-1856年克里米亚战争期间从克里米亚回的著名报道,提供了英国军队混乱不堪的惊人证据,对国内舆论产生了重大影响,至今仍引人入胜。7作为直接报道的来源,报纸未来对历史学家而言可能更具价值。尽管政府和企业仍在不断积累庞大的档案,但重要决策越来越多地通过电话和电子邮件而非信件进行沟通,记者当时非正式获得的信息可能成为当时事件的唯一书面记录。最后,报纸不时会刊登对超出常规新闻报道范围的问题进行更深入调查的结果。这一传统的创始人是亨利·梅休,他是一位生活拮据的作家,曾在1849-1850年间短暂受雇于《晨报》。作为“驻伦敦特派记者”,他撰写了一系列文章,揭露了1849年霍乱大流行病后伦敦贫民的社会状况,这些文章后来成为他著作《伦敦劳工与伦敦贫民》(1851年)的基础。此后,鲜有调查记者能在研究的严谨程度或对当时舆论的影响方面与梅休相提并论。8

But the most important published primary source for the historian is the press, which in Britain has a continuous history dating back to the early eighteenth century, the first daily newspaper having been founded in 1702. Newspapers have a threefold value. First, they record the political and social views that made most impact at the time; indeed the earliest newspapers, which had developed out of the vigorous tradition of pamphleteering during the Civil War and Commonwealth (1642–60), contained little else and are remembered now for the brilliant polemics of Addison, Steele and Swift. To this day the leaders and correspondence columns of the great London dailies offer the best entry into the current state of establishment opinion – provided due allowance is made for the editorial bias of the paper in question. Second, newspapers provide a day-to-day record of events. During the nineteenth century this function began to be filled much more fully, particularly when the development of the electric telegraph in the 1850s enabled journalists in distant postings to file their copy home as soon as it was written. W.H. Russell of The Times was one of the first to take advantage of this revolution in communications. His celebrated dispatches from the Crimea during the war of 1854–6, which provided shocking evidence of the disarray of the British forces, had a major impact on public opinion at home and still make compelling reading.7 As sources of straight reporting, newspapers are likely to become even more valuable to historians in the future. For despite the vast archives that governments and corporations continue to amass, important decisions are increasingly communicated by telephone and e-mail rather than by letter, and information obtained informally by journalists at the time may provide the only contemporary written record of what has taken place. Lastly, newspapers from time to time present the results of more thorough enquiries into issues that lie beyond the scope of routine news reporting. The founder of this tradition was Henry Mayhew, an impecunious writer briefly employed by the Morning Chronicle in 1849–50. As ‘Special Correspondent for the Metropolis’ he wrote a series of articles exposing social conditions among the London poor in the aftermath of the great cholera epidemic of 1849, which later formed the basis of his book London Labour and the London Poor (1851). Few investigative journalists since then have equalled Mayhew in the thoroughness of his research or in his impact on contemporary opinion.8

联邦

Commonwealth

从1649年到1654年,英国实行共和国制度,被称为英联邦;从1654年到1659年,英国在奥利弗·克伦威尔的统治下实行护国公制度。这一时期宪政和政治的不确定性导致大量小册子的出现,这些小册子阐述了关于国家未来发展方向的各种相互矛盾的政治和宗教理论。

From 1649 to 1654 England was ruled as a republic, known as the Commonwealth, and from 1654 to 1659 as a Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell. The constitutional and political uncertainty of the period saw the production of a huge number of pamphlets laying out conflicting political and religious theories about the direction in which the country ought to move.

建立

establishment

该术语最初由 20 世纪 60 年代的年轻讽刺作家和激进作家创造,用来指代所有从现状中获益并因此希望维护现状的人、机构和态度。

A term originally coined by young satirists and radical writers in the 1960s to denote all those persons, institutions and attitudes that do well out of the status quo and wish therefore to preserve it.

归档他们的副本

file their copy

“提交稿件”是新闻术语,指提交文章文本。

‘To file copy’ is a journalistic term for submitting the text of an article.

克里米亚

Crimea

克里米亚战争(1854-1856年)中,英国与法国和土耳其联手对抗俄国,这场战争的显著特点是英国军事行政管理效率低下、能力不足。因此,战争中赢得最多赞誉的人物,既有像记者威廉·霍华德·罗素和护理管理者弗洛伦斯·南丁格尔那样揭露战争弊端的人,也有深受其害的普通英国士兵。

The Crimean War (1854–6), in which Britain fought alongside France and Turkey against Russia, was marked by serious administrative inefficiency and incompetence in British military administration. As a result, the figures who emerged with most credit from the war were those, like the journalist William Howard Russell or the nursing administrator Florence Nightingale, who exposed its shortcomings, and the ordinary British soldier who suffered from them.

贫困的

impecunious

贫穷,缺钱。

Poor, short of money.

文学作为历史资料

Literature as historical source material

还有一种资料来源是为同时代人(通常也为后世)而创作的,历史学家必须考虑,尽管它比较特殊:那就是文学作品。小说和戏剧当然不能被视为事实报告,无论其中有多少自传性或社会观察的成分。毋庸置疑,历史小说——或者莎士比亚的历史剧——也不具备作为其所指时期历史陈述的权威性。但是,所有文学作品都能让我们深入了解作者所处的社会和思想环境,并且通常还能对当时的自然环境进行生动的描写。一位作家的成功往往取决于他或她如何表达同时代文学家的价值观和关注点。因此,引用乔叟的作品来代表十四世纪平信徒对教会弊端的态度,或者引用狄更斯的作品来展现维多利亚时代中产阶级思考“英国状况”问题时的心态,都是合情合理的。

There is one other kind of source intended for the eyes of contemporaries (and often for posterity too) that historians have to consider, though it is rather a special case: this is creative literature. Novels and plays cannot, of course, be treated as factual reports, however great the element of autobiography or social observation may be. Nor, needless to say, do historical novels – or Shakespeare’s history plays for that matter – carry any authority as historical statements about the periods to which they refer. But all creative literature offers insights into the social and intellectual milieu in which the writer lived, and often vivid descriptions of the physical setting as well. The success of an author is often attributable to the way in which he or she articulates the values and preoccupations of literary contemporaries. So it makes good sense to cite Chaucer as a spokesman for the attitudes of the fourteenth-century laity to abuses in the Church, or Dickens as evidence of the frame of mind in which middle-class Victorians considered the ‘condition of England’ question.

乔叟(约1340-1400年)

Chaucer (c.1340–1400)

杰弗里·乔叟,英国诗人,《坎特伯雷故事集》的作者。这些故事涵盖了广泛的主题和社会阶层,因此被中世纪晚期的历史学家广泛引用。

Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet and author of The Canterbury Tales. The tales cover a wide range of subjects and social classes, and are therefore heavily used by historians of the late Middle Ages.

“英格兰状况”问题

‘condition of england’ question

19 世纪 40 年代用来指代围绕贫困、肮脏环境以及贫富关系等问题的短语。

A phrase used by the 1840s to denote the questions surrounding the problems of poverty, squalor and relations between the rich and the poor.

III

记录来源:备忘录、会议记录和官方信函

Record sources: memos, minutes and official correspondence

由于报纸、官方出版物和议会演讲稿大多是为了影响当时的舆论而撰写,历史学家往往比那些为了满足后世需求而撰写的编年史和回忆录更重视它们。然而,出版本身就限制了所有这些史料的价值。它们只包含那些被认为适合公开的内容——政府愿意公开的内容、记者从守口如瓶的线人那里获取的信息、编辑认为能够取悦读者的内容,以及议员认为能够取悦选民的内容。在每一种情况下,都存在着某种控制性的目的,这种目的可能会限制、扭曲甚至歪曲所表达的内容。正如兰克所言,想要“展现事情的本来面目”(见第19页)的历史学家必须深入探究已出版的文字背后的真相,这就是为什么现代历史知识的最大进步都建立在对“档案”——例如信件、会议记录和日记等机密文件——的研究之上。正是通过这些形式,人们记录了他们的决定、讨论,有时甚至是他们的……内心深处的想法,全然不顾未来历史学家的目光。历史学家一次又一次地发现,仔细研究史料会揭示出一幅与当时观察者自信满满的概括截然不同的图景。在19世纪的英国,医学作家威廉·阿克顿宣称,体面的女性不会有任何性欲,他的观点被广泛引用,作为维多利亚时代压抑的证据;然而,只有当人们查阅夫妻间的信件和日记时,才清楚地发现已婚女性的性反应远比这丰富得多。9无论是探讨英国革命参与者的动机,还是工业革命对生活水平的影响,亦或是大西洋奴隶贸易的规模,都无法替代对当时史料的细致收集和研究。

Because newspapers, official publications and parliamentary speeches are composed mostly with a view to their impact on contemporary opinion, historians attach greater weight to them than to the chronicles and memoirs written with the requirements of posterity in mind. But the very fact of publication sets a limit on the value of all these sources. They contain only what was considered to be fit for public consumption – what governments were prepared to reveal, what journalists could elicit from tight-lipped informants, what editors thought would gratify their readers, or MPs their constituents. In each case there is a controlling purpose which may limit, distort or falsify what is said. The historian who wishes, in Ranke’s phrase, ‘to show how things actually were’ (see pp. 19) must go behind the published word, and that is why the greatest advances in modern historical knowledge have been based on research into ‘records’ – confidential documents such as letters, minutes and diaries. It is in these forms that men and women record their decisions, discussions and sometimes their innermost thoughts, unmindful of the eyes of future historians. Time and again, historians have found that a careful study of the record sources reveals a picture very different from the confident generalizations of contemporary observers. In nineteenth-century England the medical writer William Acton declared that respectable women experienced no sexual feelings of any kind, and his view has been much cited as evidence of Victorian repression; only when the letters and diaries between spouses were examined did it become clear that a much wider range of sexual responses existed among married women.9 Whether the question at issue is the motives of the participants in the English Civil War, or the impact of the Industrial Revolution on standards of living, or the volume of the Atlantic slave trade, there is no substitute for the painstaking accumulation of evidence from the record sources of the period.

在大多数国家,未发表记录中数量最多的是国家档案,自兰克时代以来,对政府档案的研究比对任何其他类型资料的研究都多。在西方,现存最古老的国家档案形成于十二世纪,这一时期欧洲各地的政府组织都得到了显著发展。在英国,一套连续的税收记录——财政部财政卷宗——可以追溯到1155年,而皇家法院(国王法庭和普通诉讼法庭)的记录则可以追溯到1194年。系统性记录保存的开端可以精确地追溯到1199年。那一年,约翰国王的大法官休伯特·沃尔特开始将所有以国王名义从大法官办公室发出的重要信件抄录到羊皮纸卷轴上。即使在十三、十四世纪出现了其他部门之后,大臣府仍然是皇家行政的神经中枢,其登记册是英国中世纪最重要的档案资料来源。

In most countries the largest single body of unpublished records is that belonging to the state, and since Ranke’s day more research has been devoted to government archives than to any other kind of source. In the West the oldest surviving state archives took shape during the twelfth century, which saw a marked advance in the sophistication of government organization all over Europe. In England a continuous series of revenue records – the Pipe Rolls of the Exchequer – extends back to 1155, and the records of the royal courts (King’s Bench and Common Pleas) to 1194. The beginning of systematic record-keeping can be dated precisely to 1199. In that year King John’s Chancellor, Hubert Walter, began the practice of making copies on parchment rolls of all the more important letters dispatched from Chancery in the king’s name. Even after the emergence of other departments in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Chancery remained the nerve centre of royal administration, and its enrolments are the most important archival source for the Middle Ages in England.

大法官府

Chancery

中世纪时期的皇家秘书处,由国王的大法官管理。

The royal secretariat in medieval times, administered by the King’s Chancellor.

官僚机构的记录

The records of bureaucracy

在1450年至1550年间,中世纪的行政体系被由枢密院控制的更为官僚化的行政结构所取代。在这个结构中,权力最大的官员是国王的秘书(后称国务大臣),自亨利八世统治时期起,他的记录,即所谓的“国事文件”,成为研究政策的最重要资料来源。以及政府的行动。与衡平法院记录相比,国家文件,正如加尔布雷思所说,

During the period 1450–1550 the medieval system was superseded by a more bureaucratic administrative structure controlled by the Privy Council. The most powerful single official within this structure was the King’s Secretary (later called the Secretary of State), and from the reign of Henry VIII his records, known as the State Papers, become the most rewarding source for the policies and actions of the government. In contrast to Chancery records the State Papers, to quote Galbraith,

这些信件并非办公室的例行公事,而是一位职责范围不受限制的官员的私密而杂乱的通信……中世纪时期将我们与人物性格和个性隔开的面纱被撕开了。10

are not the routine products of an office, but the intimate and miscellaneous correspondence of an official whose duties knew no fixed limits … The veil that separates us from character and personality in the Middle Ages is torn aside.10

在 1536 年的国家文件中,保存着这封信,信中传唤了一位来自莱斯特郡的不幸牧师接受审讯,可能与叛国罪有关;信中充满威胁的语气是毋庸置疑的:

Among the State Papers for 1536 there survives this letter summoning an unfortunate priest from Leicestershire to an interrogation, probably in connection with treason; the menacing tone is unmistakable:

我向你们推荐我。奉国王之命,你们务必遵守,无论任何借口或拖延,一见到此函,无论我身在何处,都应立即前来拜访,你们届时便可知晓我的具体职责。切勿违背,否则后果自负。摘自7月8日卷宗。托马斯·克伦威尔[原文如此] 。11

I commend me unto you. Letting you wit the King’s pleasure and commandment is that, all excuses and delays set apart, ye shall incontinently upon the sight hereof repair unto me wheresoever I shall chance to be, the specialties whereof ye shall know at your coming. Without failing thus to do, as ye will answer at your peril. From the Rolls, the 8th day of July. Thomas Crumwell [sic].11

正是这类文件在接下来的几个世纪里大量涌现,因为为了应对政府职能的不断扩张,政府任命了更多国务大臣来管理新的部门。到了19世纪,每个部门都系统地记录了收到的信件和文件、发出的信件副本以及部门内部流传的备忘录。在这个复杂的官僚机构中,内阁处于顶端。在其成立后的前200年里,内阁的讨论完全“不公开”,但自1916年以来,内阁秘书处开始记录内阁每周的会议纪要,并准备供内阁使用的文件。

It is this category of document that proliferated in the following centuries, as additional Secretaries of State were appointed to run new departments that could keep abreast of the expanding scope of government. By the nineteenth century each department of state was keeping a systematic record of letters and papers received, copies of letters sent out and memoranda circulating within the department. At the apex of this complex bureaucratic structure stands the Cabinet. For the first 200 years of its existence, its deliberations were entirely ‘off the record’, but since 1916 the Cabinet Secretariat has kept minutes of the Cabinet’s weekly meetings and prepared papers for its use.

托马斯·克伦威尔(1485年-1540年)

Thomas Cromwell (c.1485–1540)

克伦威尔先后担任沃尔西枢机主教和亨利八世国王的秘书。他监督了修道院的解散,其中包括对修道院、女修道院和隐修院的内部事务进行严格审查。

Secretary successively to Cardinal Wolsey and to King Henry VIII. Cromwell oversaw the dissolution of the monasteries, which involved rigorous examination of the internal affairs of monasteries, convents and abbeys.

都铎王朝时期政府扩张的另一个方面是常驻大使开展日常外交活动的开端。意大利各邦在15世纪80年代和90年代树立了先例;其他国家很快效仿,到16世纪20年代,英国的外交网络已基本成型。威尼斯大使在1503年至1504年的十二个月内从罗马发回了472份公文,比大多数大使都勤奋得多,定期汇报从一开始就是大使职责的重要组成部分。这些报告不仅比以往任何时候都更全面地记录了外交政策的实施情况,还记录了外交官对其所驻在国和所在国的评价。兰克在研究政治史和外交史时大量参考了这些报告,而且已经有很多相关的研究成果。此后,历史学家们的研究领域几乎完全局限于外交文件。到了19世纪末——通常被认为是外交史的“黄金时代”——文献记录如此丰富,以至于历史学家可以重构外交倡议的每一个阶段,从部委官员最初的试探性提议到最终的谈判报告。

Another aspect of the enlargement of government under the Tudors was the beginning of routine diplomacy conducted by resident ambassadors. The Italian states set the pattern in the 1480s and 1490s; other countries soon followed, and England’s diplomatic network had taken shape by the 1520s. The Venetian ambassador who, in the course of twelve months in 1503–4, sent back from Rome 472 dispatches, was more industrious than most,12 but regular reporting home was from the start an essential part of the ambassador’s duties. These reports not only document the conduct of foreign policy more fully than ever before; they also record the diplomat’s appraisal of the court and country to which he was accredited. Ranke relied on them heavily for both political and diplomatic history, and there have been many historians since whose expertise is almost entirely limited to diplomatic documents. By the late nineteenth century – often thought of as the ‘golden age’ of diplomatic history – the documentary record is so full that the historian can reconstruct every stage in a diplomatic initiative from the first tentative proposal of a ministry official to the completed report on the negotiations.

十九世纪也是政府开始系统地记录全体人口的时期。人口普查旨在列出任何时期一个国家或社区所有在世成员的名单;没有人口普查,就无法确定绝对人口数量,也无法判断人口是增长还是减少。自1801年以来,英国每十年进行一次人口普查,人们普遍认为,自1841年(首次记录每个人的姓名)之后,人口总数的误差在统计学上微不足道。其他一些早期记录也留存至今,例如纳税申报表、教会领圣餐登记表、政治效忠声明等等。但是,尽管这些记录的初衷是全面的,但在实践中却很少做到如此,误差范围也十分不确定且不一致。在人口普查制度发展的同时,英国还建立了一套完善的民事登记系统,用于记录所有“重要”事件,即出生、结婚和死亡,并以此为基础进行更为准确的人口预测。从那时起,政府收集的关于全体人口的数据范围和数量稳步增加。

The nineteenth century was also the period when government began to make systematic records of the entire population. The census aims to list all the members of a country or community alive at any one time; without it absolute numbers cannot be determined, nor whether the population is increasing or declining. In Britain a census has been taken at ten-yearly intervals since 1801, and it is generally conceded that after 1841 (when the name of each individual was noted for the first time), errors in the totals are statistically insignificant. Other listings survive from earlier periods – tax returns, returns of church communicants, declarations of political loyalty and the like. But, though comprehensive in intent, these were seldom so in practice, and the margin of error is very uncertain and inconsistent. At the same time as the census was being developed, Britain set up a comprehensive system of civil registration to record all ‘vital’ events, i.e. births, marriages and deaths, on the basis of which much more accurate demographic projections could be made. Since then, the range and volume of data amassed by government about the population as a whole has steadily increased.

教会记录

Church records

另有两种类型的记录与中央政府记录一样具有官方性质。首先,在中世纪,教会的权力即便不超过国家,也至少与国家不相上下。在大多数欧洲国家,教会直到19世纪初仍保留着许多世俗领域的权力。教会的历史由数量庞大的教会记录完整地记录下来,这些记录至今仍可供历史学家查阅,其中许多记录几乎未曾被翻阅。授予教会土地和特权的皇家特许状从中世纪早期就被保存了下来,大量的记录也证明了主教和修道院管理的效率。教会法庭的记录比乍看之下更有趣,因为许多普通人的道德过错都由他们来审理。管辖权。例如,在16世纪和17世纪初的英国,当国教相对于清教派的地位受到威胁时,教会法庭大力惩戒信徒因此这些法庭的记录是社会史学家重要的史料来源,尤其是在性犯罪和性诽谤方面。 13教会法庭在英国一直保留着对遗嘱的管辖权,直到1858年。从伊丽莎白一世统治时期开始,教会法庭坚持要求对所有动产进行详细清点,这些清点记录如今可以为历史学家提供大量关于财富、地位和生活水平的信息。

Two other types of record share the official character of central government records. First, during the Middle Ages the Church wielded as much, if not more, authority than the state, and in most European countries it retained many of its powers in the secular sphere until the early nineteenth century. Its history is fully documented by the immense quantity of Church records that are available to historians today, many of them still virtually untouched. Royal charters granting land and privileges to the Church have been preserved from the early Middle Ages, and copious records document the efficiency of episcopal and monastic administration. The records of the Church courts are more interesting than might seem likely at first glance, because so many moral misdemeanours of ordinary people came within their jurisdiction. In sixteenth and early seventeenth-century England, for example, when the established Church’s position vis-à-vis the Puritan sects was under threat, strenuous efforts were made through the Church courts to discipline the laity, and the records of these courts are therefore an important source for the social historian, particularly as regards sexual misdemeanours and sexual defamation.13 The Church courts also retained jurisdiction over wills in England until 1858, and from Elizabeth I’s reign onwards they insisted on detailed inventories of all movable property, which can now tell the historian a great deal about wealth, status and standards of living.

主教

episcopal

与主教有关。

Pertaining to bishops.

教会法庭

Church courts

教会法庭处理的是违反教会法(即教会法)的罪行,而不是民事罪行,民事罪行则由国王的法庭处理。教会法庭经常处理性不道德案件。

Church courts dealt with offences against canon (i.e. Church) law, rather than civil offences, which were dealt with in the king’s courts. Church courts often dealt with cases of sexual immorality.

俗人

laity

“平信徒”,即非神职人员。

‘Lay’ people, i.e. those who are not members of the clergy.

地方政府和私营企业

Local government and private firms

其次,还有地方政府的记录。13世纪的英格兰,庄园领主开始效仿国王的做法,保存记录——尤其是司法记录,因为他们对佃户和仆人拥有法律管辖权。其结果是,无论贫富,土地所有权的变更都得到了相对完整的记录。14世纪,王室任命了第一批治安法官,在都铎王朝时期,他们肩负起日益繁重的责任——涉及治安、救济贫民、工资监管和征兵等诸多方面。这些职责大多在每三个月一次的郡季度会议上履行,并由治安法官书记员记录。这一直是英格兰地方政府的基础,直到19世纪现代郡议会和自治市议会制度建立。在此之前,很大一部分地方记录都是法律记录:无论是庄园领主还是治安法官,都同时承担着司法和行政职责。在所有公共记录中,法院记录的日常琐事和轻微纠纷,往往最能反映政府小圈子之外的更广阔的社会。

Second, there are the records of local government. During the thirteenth century in England lords of the manor began to follow the king’s example and keep records – and particularly judicial records, since they had legal jurisdiction over their tenants and servants. One result is that changes in landholding are relatively well documented for rich and poor alike. The first Justices of the Peace were commissioned by the Crown in the fourteenth century, and under the Tudors they were saddled with a mounting load of responsibility – for matters as various as policing, poor relief, wage regulation and military recruitment. Much of this burden was discharged during quarter sessions held at three-monthly intervals in each county, and recorded by a Clerk of the Peace. This remained the basis of local government in England until the modern system of county and borough councils was established during the nineteenth century. Until that time a high proportion of local records are legal: the same individuals – whether lords of the manor or Justices of the Peace – were charged with judicial as well as administrative duties. Of all public records, the court records of everyday and often trivial disputes and misdemeanours shed most light on the wider society beyond the small world of government.

教会和地方行政机构的记录看似无关紧要,但实际上对社会史的发展至关重要。社会史早期研究范围有限,部分原因在于历史学家倾向于选择阻力最小的路径,即沿着那些明确具有“社会”功能的机构(如学校、教会、行政机构等)的记录进行研究。医院、工会等等;其结果往往是过于狭隘的制度性工作。但如今我们所理解的社会史远不止于此。社会群体不会留下正式的记录。它们的构成及其在社会结构中的地位,必须从各种各样的资料中重建,而这些资料的来源往往出于截然不同且通常更为平凡的原因。对于普通民众的历史而言,尤其如此。直到十九世纪,他们的境况和观点才成为系统性社会调查的对象。在此之前,我们对他们的印象不可避免地被那些引起当局注意的活动所主导:贫困、诉讼、煽动叛乱,以及——最重要的是——普通犯罪和违反教会纪律的行为。在民众不满的时期,这种关注尤为强烈,通常“隐形”的社会领域可能会通过法律和警方记录得以展现。十八世纪伦敦不时爆发的骚乱就是一个例证。14同样,对革命的恐惧可能会加剧官方对下层阶级活动的监视,正如拿破仑战争期间的英国那样:“如果没有间谍、告密者和信件抄写员,英国工人阶级的历史将不为人知”,E·P·汤普森写道,这话虽略有夸张。15这样的机会就显得尤为珍贵,因为在其他时期,关于普通民众的信息通常要匮乏得多。法院记录仍然有用,但在较为稳定的时期,司法活动并不频繁,因此更难构建一个地方社区的概况。在能够自信地做出任何概括之前,必须仔细筛选大量的法院记录,通常还需要结合其他地方资料,例如庄园记录、税务登记册、遗嘱和慈善机构的记录。

The records of the Church and local administration might seem to be of marginal interest. In fact they are crucial to the prospects of social history. The limited scope of the first ventures in social history is partly explained by the tendency of historians to take the line of least resistance and follow the trail through the records of institutions with an avowedly ‘social’ function – schools, hospitals, trade unions and such; the result was all too often work of a narrowly institutional character. But social history as it is now understood demands a great deal more. Social groups do not leave corporate records. Their composition and their place in the social structure have to be reconstructed from a broad range of sources composed for quite different and usually much more mundane reasons. This is especially true of the history of the common people. Their conditions and opinions became the subject of systematic social surveys only during the nineteenth century. Until then, the picture that we form of them is inevitably dominated by those activities that brought down on them the attention of the authorities: destitution, litigation, sedition, and – most of all – common crime and offences against Church discipline. At times of popular discontent this attention was particularly intrusive, and whole areas of society which normally remain ‘invisible’ may be illuminated by legal and police records. The riots that periodically broke out in eighteenth-century London are a case in point.14 Equally, fear of revolution may intensify official surveillance of lower-class activities, as in England during the Napoleonic Wars: ‘But for spies, narks and letter-copiers, the history of the English working class would be unknown’, wrote E.P. Thompson, with only a little overstatement.15 Such opportunities are all the more precious because at other times information about the common people is usually much thinner. Court records are still useful, but in more settled conditions judicial activity was less intense, and it is therefore much more difficult to build up the profile of a local community. Before any generalization can be made with confidence, a vast quantity of court records has to be sifted, usually in conjunction with other local sources such as manorial records, tax registers, wills and the records of charitable institutions.

教会和国家是西方社会最古老的记录保存机构。但从十五世纪开始,历史学家可以利用私人公司和协会(如行会、大学、工会、政党和压力集团)产生的日益增多的记录来补充它们。尤其值得关注的是企业和公司的记录。它们的起源已湮没在历史的迷雾之中。现存的唯一一份重要的中世纪英国贸易公司文献档案是塞利家族的档案,该家族在15世纪70年代和80年代是向低地国家出口羊毛的重要力量。到了十八世纪,商业记录……这些文献数量极其丰富,是工业革命史研究者的重要资料来源。例如,斯托克波特纺织制造商塞缪尔·奥尔德诺的文稿于1921年在一家废弃的工厂中偶然被发现;这些文稿涵盖1782年至1812年,生动地记录了从家庭作坊式生产向工厂式生产过渡的历程。如今,许多公司都保存着同一时期甚至更早时期的现金账簿、库存清单和分类账;英国酿酒业史学家回忆道:

Church and state are the oldest record-keeping institutions in Western society. But from the fifteenth century onwards the historian can supplement them with an ever-increasing volume of records generated by private corporations and associations – guilds, universities, trade unions, political parties and pressure groups. Of particular interest are the records of businesses and firms. Their beginnings are shrouded in obscurity. The only major documentary archive of a medieval English trading firm which has come down to us is the papers of the Cely family, who were prominent in the export of wool to the Low Countries in the 1470s and 1480s.16 By the eighteenth century commercial records become really plentiful, and they are an essential source for historians of the Industrial Revolution. For example, the papers of the Stockport textile manufacturer Samuel Oldknow were discovered quite by chance in a disused mill in 1921; covering the period 1782–1812, they provide vivid documentation for the transition from the domestic to the factory system of production.17 Many companies today have cash-books, inventories and ledgers dating back to the same period or earlier; the historian of England’s brewing industry recalls:

该行业的家族传承如此之深,以至于在大多数情况下,我发现自己是在查阅现任企业所有者和管理者的祖先的信件和账目,阅读他们在十八世纪酿酒的同一地点留下的记录。18

The family continuity in the industry has been such that in most cases I found myself working on the letters and the accounts of the ancestors of the present owners and managers of the concerns, reading their records on the same site where they had brewed in the eighteenth century.18

他查阅的记录包括惠特布雷德、查林顿和杜鲁门等知名人士的记录。

The records he examined included those of such well-known names as Whitbread, Charrington and Truman.

第四

IV

私人文件

Private papers

一般来说,留下最多痕迹的活动都是有组织的活动,尤其是那些由机构控制的活动,这些机构的寿命远超其成员的职业生涯——无论是政府、宗教团体还是企业。在有记载的历史的大部分时间里,识字的人很可能是在履行职业或公务时进行写作的。然而,仍有大量文字资料留存至今,这些资料是由人们在办公室或账房之外的私人场合记录下来的。其中绝大部分是私人信件,自17世纪以来,这类信件的数量显著增加。例如,弗尼家族是白金汉郡的乡绅,他们笔耕不辍,并精心保存了信件。从17世纪30年代到18世纪中期,他们留下的信件超过3万封。苏珊·怀曼指出,正是通过这些信件,

As a general rule, those activities which leave most evidence behind are organized activities, and especially those controlled by bodies that have a life-span beyond the careers of the individuals who happen to staff them at any one time – whether they be governments, religious bodies or businesses. For the greater part of recorded history, literate people have probably done most of their writing in the course of their professional or official duties. Nevertheless, there survives a vast mass of written material that has been set down by men and women as private individuals, outside the office or the counting house. Much the largest proportion is accounted for by private correspondence, and from the seventeenth century this becomes available in considerable quantities. For example, the Verneys were Buckinghamshire gentry who wrote copiously and were careful to preserve their correspondence. For the period between the 1630s and the mid-eighteenth century more than 30,000 letters survive. Through such letters, says Susan Whyman,

我们可以看到个人如何在以血统、习俗和礼仪为基础的社会中生存。我们可以揭示一个家庭的社会准则,并观察他们是接受还是规避了这些规范……我们可以看到人们他们通过建立人际网络、维系友谊以及与远方的亲人沟通,为生活带来了稳定。通过书信,我们可以了解人们如何应对焦虑、疾病和孤独。19

We can see how individuals coped in a society based upon lineage, custom and manners. We can uncover a family’s social code, and note whether they accepted or evaded its norms … We can see how people brought stability to their lives by constructing networks, maintaining friendships, and communicating with absent loved ones. Through letters we can watch how people dealt with anxiety, illness, and isolation.19

也不应认为只有上流社会才写信。工人阶级写信较少,保存的信件就更少了。但远方亲人的来信有时会被保存下来,而且从十九世纪至今,数量相当可观。移居澳大利亚的爱尔兰人将家信视作“慰藉的海洋”;大卫·菲茨帕特里克根据现存的111封信件,重构了14个这样的家庭的故事。这些资料让通常以枯燥统计数据呈现的故事变得生动鲜活。

Nor should it be supposed that the gentry had a monopoly on letter-writing. Working-class people wrote fewer letters and preserved fewer still. But the letters of far-flung family members were sometimes kept, and they survive in considerable numbers from the nineteenth century. Irish emigrants to Australia treasured letters from home as ‘oceans of consolation’; David Fitzpatrick has reconstituted the narratives of fourteen such families, drawing on a total of 111 surviving letters.20 Such material gives a human face to a story more often presented in dry statistics.

没有其他任何史料能如此清晰地展现过去人们的家庭和社会关系。如果没有私人信件,传记作者就只能满足于研究人物的公共生活或商业生活——而这实际上也是中世纪传记通常所能涵盖的全部。之所以能够相对全面地了解维多利亚时代人们的私人生活,主要原因之一是当时高效便捷的邮政服务使他们能够进行大量的通信:一位因婚姻而远离家庭的上层阶级女性,一年内可能要写400多封信。 21这种现象一直持续到第一次世界大战后电话普及为止。但私人信件对于政治史学家来说也是重要的史料来源。这是因为政府记录更关注决策及其执行,而非决策者的动机。公众人物的私人信件揭示了许多官方记录中鲜有提及的内容。19世纪和20世纪初是私人信件的黄金时代,当时政界的亲密同事几乎每天都会互通书信。这些信件大多绕过官方渠道,只打算让收信人看到。一些政治人物会向完全没有政治地位的朋友倾诉心事。在担任首相的三年(1912-1915年)里,亨利·亨利·阿斯奎斯每天都会给一位名叫维尼蒂亚·斯坦利的年轻女士写一到两封信。在这些信中,他可以坦率地表达自己所有的政治焦虑和挫败感(以及许多琐碎的想法),因为他确信这些话不会传出去。以下是1915年3月的一封信:这是他对时任海军大臣温斯顿·丘吉尔的评价:

There are no other sources that bring to life so clearly the family and social relationships of people in the past. Without private correspondence the biographer must be content with the public or business life – which indeed is all that medieval biographies can usually attain. One of the main reasons why it is possible to give a relatively full account of the private lives of the Victorians is that an efficient and frequent postal service enabled them to conduct a voluminous correspondence: an upper-class woman whose marriage took her away from her own family might write more than 400 letters in a single year.21 This pattern remained common until the spread of the telephone after the First World War. But private letters are an essential source for historians of politics as well. This is because government records are more concerned with decisions and their implementation than with the motives of the people who made them. The private correspondence of public figures reveals much that is scarcely hinted at in the official record. The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the great age of personal correspondence, when close colleagues in public life wrote to each other daily. Much of this correspondence by-passed official channels and was intended to be seen by none but the recipient. Some politicians confided to a remarkable degree in friends who were without any formal position in politics at all. For three of the years (1912–15) during which he was Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith wrote once or twice a day to a young lady called Venetia Stanley. In these letters he could frankly express all his political anxieties and frustrations (as well as many more trivial reflections), confident that his remarks would go no further. Here, in a letter of March 1915, is his assessment of Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty:

H·H·阿斯奎斯(1858–1928)

H.H. Asquith (1858–1928)

第一次世界大战前后的自由党总理(1908-1916 年)。

Liberal Prime Minister before and during the First World War, 1908–16.

如你所知,和你一样,我非常喜欢他;但我对他未来的前景充满担忧……他拥有如此卓越的才能,却永远无法在英国政坛攀上顶峰;如果一个人不能赢得信任,那么即使他能言善辩,即使他日夜辛劳地从事行政工作,也毫无意义。22

As you know, like you, I am really fond of him; but I regard his future with many misgivings … He will never get to the top in English politics, with all his wonderful gifts; to speak with the tongue of men & angels, and to spend laborious days & nights in administration, is no good, if a man does not inspire trust.22

日记

Diaries

私人信件与另一种在某些方面更能揭示个性和观点的资料来源——日记——密切相关。日记写作始于十六世纪,很快便成为受过教育者,尤其是英国人的一种常见文学创作方式。英国涌现出两位日记大师:约翰·伊夫林塞缪尔·佩皮斯。与编年史家或纪事家不同,日记作者不仅关注他们所目睹的外部事件,也同样关注自身的主观感受。促使人们每周花费数小时来写日记的动机绝非儿戏。对于创作型作家而言,日记满足了他们观察和反思的欲望,使他们摆脱了小说、诗歌或戏剧等形式限制的束缚。而对于政治家来说,人们有时会认为日记只不过是撰写自传时的参考资料而已。但对大多数政治日记作者而言,与日记所带来的从公众视野中解脱出来的机会相比,这并非首要考虑因素。格莱斯顿从1825年到1896年间所写的日记几乎像是一部忏悔录每日的公务和政治评论被大量痛苦的自我剖析所打断,这是他对灵魂纯洁的不懈追求。23任何没有读过这本日记的历史学家都无法真正理解这位维多利亚时代政治巨擘的个性。对于工党政治家休·道尔顿来说,写日记似乎满足了他与政治表现直接相关的心理需求。正如本·皮姆洛特所解释的那样,这本日记涵盖了1916年至1960年,既是道尔顿“思想的倾诉对象”,也是他“强烈的政治自毁倾向”的安全阀,尤其在他对自己最亲密的政治伙伴充满怨恨或恼怒之时,日记的内容最为详尽。24

Private letters are associated with another source that is in some ways even more revealing of personality and opinion – the diary. Diary-keeping began in the sixteenth century and soon became a common literary accomplishment among the educated, especially in England, which in John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys produced two of the greatest masters of the art. Unlike chroniclers or annalists, diarists are as much preoccupied with their own subjective response as with the external events that they have witnessed. The considerations that induce someone to devote several hours each week to keeping up a diary are anything but frivolous. For creative writers the diary satisfies the compulsion to observe and reflect, free of the constraints imposed by the formal requirements of the novel, poem or play. Of politicians it is sometimes assumed that a diary serves as little more than an aide-mémoire to be drawn on when the time comes to compose an autobiography. But for most political diarists this is a secondary consideration compared with the release from the intense pressures of life in the public eye that a diary affords. The diary that Gladstone kept from 1825 to 1896 has almost the character of a confessional: the record of daily engagements and political commentaries is broken up by long passages of painful self-analysis, an unremitting quest for purity of soul.23 No historian who has not read the diary can hope to understand the personality of this giant among Victorian statesmen. In the case of the Labour politician, Hugh Dalton, diary-writing seems to have filled a psychological need directly related to his political performance. As Ben Pimlott explains, the diary, which spans the years 1916 to 1960, acted both as a ‘soundingboard for ideas’ and as a safety-valve for Dalton’s ‘very strong instinct towards political self-destructiveness’, being fullest for those times when he was consumed by feelings of resentment or irritation against his closest political associates.24

约翰·伊夫林(1620–1706)

John Evelyn (1620–1706)

尽管伊夫林在复辟时期积极参与政治活动,但他最出名的还是他的日记。

Although active in politics after the Restoration, Evelyn is best known for his diary.

塞缪尔·佩皮斯(1633–1703)

Samuel Pepys (1633–1703)

除了撰写著名的日记(其中记录了伦敦大火)之外,佩皮斯还担任海军部秘书,是英国海军力量发展的核心人物。

As well as keeping his celebrated diary, which includes an account of the Fire of London, Pepys was also, as Secretary to the Admiralty, a central figure in the development of British naval power.

格莱斯顿(1809–98)

Gladstone 1809–98)

威廉·尤尔特·格莱斯顿是维多利亚时代政坛的巨擘,曾四次出任英国首相。他的日记详细记录了他的日常活动,其中也包括他性生活方面的记录,这些记录是用特殊密码隐去的。

William Ewart Gladstone was a towering figure in Victorian politics, serving as Prime Minister four times. His diary is a detailed account of his daily engagements, including, obscured behind a special code, his sexual practices.

休·道尔顿(1887–1962)

Hugh Dalton (1887–1962)

工党政治家。作为克莱门特·艾德礼1945年政府的财政大臣,道尔顿在战后重工业国有化中发挥了核心作用。

Labour politician. As Chancellor of the Exchequer in Clement Attlee’s 1945 government, Dalton played a central role in the postwar nationalization of heavy industry.

对于二十世纪政治史研究者而言,尽管官方记录浩如烟海,信件和日记仍然具有特殊的意义。近两代以来,部长和公务员在公务往来中变得更加谨慎。十九世纪,此类信件偶尔会被官方公布,例如英国部长提交议会的“蓝皮书”;但出于紧迫的宣传目的,这种公布通常几乎是立即进行的,而且在某些情况下,已公布的公文正是为此目的而撰写的。然而,到了二十世纪二十年代,官方记录的选择性公布却呈爆炸式增长,因为各国政府竭力为自己开脱,并将第一次世界大战的责任推卸给他人,往往对二三十年前个别官员的声誉漠不关心。部长和公务员,尤其是那些负责外交政策的官员,在公务往来中变得更加拘谨;因此,他们私下通信的内容或日记记录就显得尤为珍贵。此外,政客们在履行部长职责时所说的许多话并没有被记录在案。例如,负责编纂内阁会议记录的公务员主要关注的是最终达成的决议;而那些激烈的政治辩论——这才是历史学家最感兴趣的内阁会议内容——却大多未被记录。理查德·克罗斯曼(Richard Crossman)于1964年至1970年在哈罗德·威尔逊(Harold Wilson)内阁中担任部长,他坚持每周写日记,正如他所说,其目的是为了“揭开英国政治的秘密”,而内阁正是其中重要的组成部分。 25克罗斯曼的日记不同寻常之处在于,他几乎从一开始就设想在几年内出版;他的作品可以与圣西蒙(Saint-Simon)或赫维(Hervey)等十八世纪伟大回忆录作家所理解的“回忆录”相媲美。相比之下,历史学家所能查阅到的绝大多数日记和信件,都是在撰写时并未考虑更广泛的读者群体。在所有信息来源中,它们最为自然真实,既揭示了公众人物精心策划的策略,也揭示了他们无意识的假设。

For the historian of twentieth-century politics, letters and diaries are of particular significance, despite the almost limitless volume of official records. In the course of the last two generations ministers and civil servants have tended to become more discreet in their official correspondence. During the nineteenth century such correspondence was occasionally published by authority, for example in the Blue Books laid by British ministers before Parliament; but this was usually done almost immediately, for pressing propaganda reasons, and the published dispatches had in some cases been composed with that express purpose. In the 1920s, however, the select publication of official records grew out of all proportion, as governments strove to excuse themselves, and blame others, for responsibility for the First World War, often with scant regard for the reputation of individual officials twenty or thirty years earlier. Ministers and civil servants, especially those concerned with foreign policy, became much more inhibited in their official correspondence; what they wrote to each other privately, or recorded in their diaries, therefore gains in interest. Moreover, much that politicians do say in the course of their ministerial duties does not find its way into the official record. The civil servants who compile Cabinet minutes, for example, are primarily concerned with the decisions reached; the heated political arguments, which are what interest the historian most about Cabinet meetings, go largely unrecorded. Richard Crossman, who served as a Cabinet minister under Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970, kept a weekly diary which was intended, as he put it, to do something towards ‘lighting up the secret places of British politics’, among which the Cabinet featured prominently.25 Crossman’s diary is unusual in that, almost from the outset, he envisaged its publication within a few years; his work bears comparison with ‘memoirs’ in the sense understood by great eighteenth century memoirists such as Saint-Simon or Hervey. By contrast, the vast majority of the diaries and letters available to the historian were written without thought of a wider readership. Of all sources they are the most spontaneous and unvarnished, revealing both the calculated stratagems and the unconscious assumptions of public figures.

蓝皮书

Blue Books

维多利亚时代的议会委员会和专门委员会的报告被出版发行——通常销量出奇地好——并因其封面呈蓝色而被称作“蓝皮书”。

Reports of Victorian parliamentary committees and commissions were published – often selling surprisingly well – and were known as Blue Books after the colour of their covers.

理查德·克罗斯曼(1907–74)

Richard Crossman (1907–74)

工党政治家。在哈罗德·威尔逊执政期间,他曾担任住房大臣,也是英国首任卫生和社会保障大臣。他于1975年至1979年间出版的日记引起了不小的轰动,因为日记揭露了威尔逊政府内部的权力斗争和政治斗争。

Labour politician. Under Harold Wilson he was Minister of Housing and the first ever Secretary of State for Health and Social Security. The posthumous publication of his diaries in 1975–9 created something of a sensation because of their revelations about the in-fighting and internal politics at the heart of Wilson’s government.

V

V

为什么信息源能够保存下来?

Why do sources survive?

通过对不同类型史料的讨论,我们不难发现,多种因素促成了大量历史文献的保存至今。私人信件和日记得以流传,或是因为作者渴望身后名声,或是因为继承人恪守家族信条,又或许是因为他们习惯性地将书籍和抽屉妥善保存。而公共记录的保存原因则更为直接,也更具说服力:自中世纪盛期以来,书面先例在法律和行政管理中扮演着至关重要的角色。简而言之,政府需要一份准确的记录,以掌握其应得的税收、会费和服务,而臣民则珍视过去所享有的特权和豁免的证明。随着王室官僚机构日益庞大臃肿,官员们越来越需要一份记录,以了解其前任的所作所为。自十五世纪起,随着外交实践日趋规范化,大臣们得以回顾本国政府与外国列强的早期关系,并了解其在对外条约下的义务和权利。适用于政府的原则也同样适用其他法人团体,例如教会、大型贸易公司和金融机构。对于这类具有持久性的机构而言,要想拥有“记忆”,唯一的办法就是对其交易进行详尽的记录。

From this discussion about the different categories of source material it will be apparent that a variety of factors have contributed to the survival of so much documentation from the past. Private letters and diaries have owed their survival to the writer’s desire for posthumous fame, or the family piety of the heirs, or perhaps their inertia in leaving trunks and drawers undisturbed. In the case of public records the reasons are more straightforward and more compelling: they arise from the central role of written precedent in law and administration since the High Middle Ages. To put it bluntly, governments needed an accurate record of what was due to them in taxes, dues and services, while the king’s subjects cherished evidence of privileges and exemptions that had been granted to them in the past. As the royal bureaucracy grew bigger and more unwieldy, it became increasingly necessary for officials to have a record of what their predecessors had done. As the practice of diplomacy became more formalized from the fifteenth century onwards, ministers could review the earlier relations of their governments with foreign powers and be briefed on their obligations and entitlements under foreign treaties. What was true of governments applied mutatis mutandis to other corporate bodies such as the Church, or the great trading companies and financial houses. The only way in which institutions with this sort of permanence could have a ‘memory’ was if a careful record of their transactions was preserved.

略作修改

mutatis mutandis

(拉丁语)“需要改变的事情已经改变”;换句话说,当对差异给予了适当的考虑时。

(Latin) ‘Those things needing to be changed having been changed’; in other words, when due allowance has been made for differences.

但实际动机并非全部。书面文献也十分脆弱,它们能够如此大量地保存下来,经受住火灾、洪水和人为忽视的考验,也需要解释。政府和基本法律秩序的延续至关重要。在欧洲大部分地区,有文字记载的文明自中世纪早期以来从未中断。在欧洲,现存文献的分布很大程度上取决于战争和革命动荡的发生。正因为英国很少经历战争和革命,所以英国中世纪的公共记录才如此丰富。最后但同样重要的是,历史意识的觉醒本身也对减少文献在失去实际用途后的损毁产生了重要影响。文艺复兴时期是这一趋势的转折点。人们对古典时代的好奇心催生了一种古物研究的心态。他们珍视历史遗迹本身——这便是考古学和手稿书籍系统性保护的开端。正是这些因素的结合,造就了西方社会历史文献的丰富性,使其区别于中国、印度和穆斯林世界等其他拥有伟大文字文明的地区,在这些地区,书面资料的保存状况远不如西方那样完整。

But practical motives are not everything. Written documents are also fragile, and the fact that they have weathered the hazards of fire, flood and sheer neglect in such profusion also requires explanation. Continuity of government and of basic law and order are vital. Throughout most of Europe the fabric of literate civilization has endured without a break since the early Middle Ages. Within Europe the distribution of the surviving documentation is largely explained by the incidence of warfare and revolutionary upheaval. It is because England has had little of either that English medieval public records are so plentiful. Last but not least, the growth of historical consciousness itself has had important consequences in minimizing the destruction of documents once they have ceased to be of practical use. Here the Renaissance was the turning point. Curiosity about classical antiquity bred an antiquarian mentality which valued the relics of the past for their own sake – hence the beginning of both archaeology and the systematic conservation of manuscripts and books. It is the combination of these factors that accounts for the uniquely rich documentation for the history of Western society and distinguishes it from the other great literate cultures of China, India and the Muslim world, where the survival of written sources has been much more patchy.

保护与出版

Conservation and publication

然而,直到最近,查找史料并确保查阅权限才变得相对容易。如果没有十九世纪中期历史研究的蓬勃发展以及人们日益增强的保护国家历史原始资料的政治意识,今天的史学家将面临更加艰巨的挑战。对于已出版的史料而言,他们的任务最为轻松。在英国,研究人员很有可能借助书目和目录,在众多享有版权的图书馆中找到所需资料。根据议会法案,这些图书馆有权免费获取在英国出版的每一本书籍和小册子;其中藏书最全的是大英图书馆(1973年以前为大英博物馆),其版权可追溯至1757年,并自19世纪40年代以来一直得到严格执行。如今,越来越多的历史出版物出现在互联网上,人们可以更便捷地访问这些资料并搜索特定数据。《老贝利刑事法庭记录》就是一个很好的例子,它涵盖了1674年至1913年期间的案件,收录了近20万起刑事审判,其中许多案件的记录都非常详尽:该网站的编辑将其描述为“迄今为止出版的记录非精英阶层生活的最大规模的文本集”,这几乎可以肯定是正确的。 26

Only relatively recently, however, has it become a reasonably simple matter to locate the sources and secure access to them. Without the coming of age of historical studies in the mid-nineteenth century and the growing political awareness of the need to preserve the raw materials of a national past, historians today would face a much more daunting prospect. Their task is easiest in the case of published sources. In England there is a good chance that the researcher, assisted by bibliographies and catalogues, will find what he or she wants in one of the great ‘copyright’ libraries, which by Act of Parliament are entitled to a free copy of every book and pamphlet published in the United Kingdom; the most complete is the British Library (until 1973 the British Museum), whose entitlement dates back to 1757 and has been rigorously enforced since the 1840s. Today more and more historic publications are appearing on the Internet, where they can be accessed much more easily and searched for specific data. A fine example is the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, covering the period 1674 to 1913, and featuring nearly 200,000 criminal trials, in many cases in great detail: the editors of the website are almost certainly correct in describing it as ‘the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published’.26

版权库

copyright libraries

除了大英图书馆之外,其他拥有版权的图书馆还有剑桥大学图书馆、牛津大学博德利图书馆、威尔士和苏格兰国家图书馆以及都柏林三一学院图书馆。

Other copyright libraries, in addition to the British Library, are Cambridge University Library, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the National Libraries of Wales and Scotland, and the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.

那么,那些未发表的史料又该如何处理呢?保存公共和私人文件,其中许多文件在撰写时并未考虑存储和查阅的需求,这构成了一项相当大的挑战。在某些情况下,出版在一定程度上解决了这些问题。19世纪,人们为此投入了大量精力,因为档案的历史价值首次得到了普遍认可。这一模式由《德国历史文献集》(Monumenta Germaniae Historica)系列丛书确立,该系列丛书于1826年在政府资助下由当时最杰出的历史学家指导出版;到19世纪60年代,大多数……中世纪德国历史的原始资料大多已出版成书。其他国家也迅速效仿,包括英国,英国的罗尔斯系列(Rolls Series)于1858年开始出版。这些项目的最初发起者旨在出版所有现存的原始资料。即使对于中世纪时期而言,这也是一个雄心勃勃的目标;对于后来的、文献更为丰富的时期而言,这显然是不可能的。因此,在19世纪后期,人们的注意力逐渐转向出版“日历”,即记录的完整摘要。日历对研究人员来说大有裨益,但这仅仅是因为它们指明了哪些文件与研究人员的目的相关;它们并不能取代对文件全文的查阅。在这方面,互联网也发挥着日益重要的作用。虽然很难想象所有档案都能以这种方式访问​​,但整个馆藏已被上传到网上,从而提高了它们在研究人员中的知名度。在英国,1901年和1911年人口普查的原始普查员记录簿都可以在网上查阅;虽然主要被追溯祖先的人们利用,但它们也为各种社会史研究应用提供了原始素材。28

But what of the unpublished sources? The conservation of public and private documents, many of them written with no thought for the requirements of storage and reference, presents a considerable challenge. In some cases the problems have been partially solved by publication. An immense effort was devoted to this task during the nineteenth century, when the historical value of records gained common acceptance for the first time. The pattern was set by the Monumenta Germaniae Historica series, which began publication with government support in 1826 under the direction of the best historians of the day; by the 1860s most of the raw materials for medieval German history were in print.27 Other countries quickly followed suit, including Britain, where the equivalent Rolls Series began to appear in 1858. The original promoters of these projects intended to publish all the extant primary sources. Even for the medieval period this was an ambitious goal; for later, more lavishly documented periods it was an obvious impossibility. In the late nineteenth century, therefore, attention was increasingly switched to the publication of ‘calendars’, or full summaries of the records. Calendars are an immense help to the researcher, but only because they indicate which documents are relevant to his or her purpose; they are no substitute for perusal of the documents in full. Here too the Internet has an increasingly vital role to play. Although it is hard to imagine a time when all archives will be accessed in this way, whole collections have been put online, thus raising their profile with researchers. In Britain the original enumerators’ books for the census of 1901 and 1911 are available online; though primarily exploited by people tracing their ancestors, they also provide raw material for a wide range of social history applications.28

档案

Archives

在大多数国家,完善的档案馆体系极大地减轻了历史学家的工作负担。但这毕竟是近些年才发展起来的,远古文献的保存往往更多地归功于运气而非良好的管理。许多档案藏品因意外而损毁:1619年的白厅大火烧毁了许多枢密院的文件,1834年席卷威斯敏斯特宫的大火也带走了大部分下议院的记录。还有一些藏品出于政治原因被蓄意销毁:1789年7月法国乡村爆发的农民起义中,一个显著的特征就是焚毁了授权向农民征收重税的庄园档案。2920世纪60年代的非洲,即将离任的殖民官员有时会销毁自己的档案,以免敏感资料落入非洲继任者手中。

In most countries the historian’s task is greatly eased by an elaborate archive service. But this is a relatively recent development, and the survival of documents from the remote past has often owed more to luck than good management. Many archival collections have perished by accident: the Whitehall fire of 1619 destroyed many of the Privy Council papers, and the fire that swept the Palace of Westminster in 1834 took with it most of the records belonging to the House of Commons. Other holdings have been deliberately destroyed for political reasons: a prominent feature of the agrarian revolts which broke out in the French countryside in July 1789 was the burning of manorial archives that authorized the exaction of heavy dues from the peasantry.29 In Africa during the 1960s departing colonial officials sometimes destroyed their files for fear that sensitive material would fall into the hands of their African successors.

在英国,如同欧洲其他地方一样,国家对档案的保存可以追溯到十二世纪。但直到十九世纪,政府的各个部门都保留着自己的档案。这些档案散落在伦敦各处,存放于各种场所。这些建筑大多极其不适宜存放档案。整个十七、十八世纪,伦敦塔内的大法官府档案都存放在军械委员会的火药库上方,而其他存放处饱受潮湿和鼠患的侵扰。这些状况不仅令希望追溯先例的私人诉讼人(以及偶尔的历史学家)感到沮丧,也令政府自身难堪:重要条约的原件即便经过最细致的搜寻也难逃厄运。十九世纪中期,如同其他许多行政领域一样,档案管理也迎来了改革时期。公共档案办公室是根据议会法案设立的。1838年,英国国家档案馆成立,并在短短二十年内接管了所有主要类别的政府档案(2003年更名为国家档案馆)。如果没有这次重组,英国中世纪历史研究取得的巨大进步——这是19世纪末20世纪初英国历史学家最伟大的成就——几乎不可能实现。如今,英国国家档案馆是世界上最大的档案馆(书架总长超过100英里),并拥有可能是世界上最先进的设施。在19世纪,欧洲大多数国家的档案馆都进行了重组,并向研究人员开放。在20世纪40年代至70年代赢得独立的亚洲和非洲新国家也经历了类似的过程。将殖民地行政档案整合到国家档案馆是为完善国家历史文献而开展的首批任务之一。

In England, as elsewhere in Europe, the conservation of archives by the state dates back to the twelfth century. But until the nineteenth century each department of government retained its own archives. They were housed all over London in a variety of buildings, many of them highly unsuitable. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Chancery records in the Tower were kept above the Ordnance Board’s gunpowder stores,30 while other repositories were exposed to the ravages of damp and rodents. These conditions not only frustrated private litigants (and the occasional historian) wishing to track down precedents but were also an embarrassment to the government itself: it was not unknown for the original of an important treaty to elude the most diligent search.31 The mid-nineteenth century was a period of reform in this as in so many other spheres of administration. The Public Record Office was set up by Act of Parliament in 1838, and within twenty years it had gained custody of all the main classes of government record (it was renamed the National Archives in 2003). Without that reorganization the immense progress made in the study of English medieval history – the greatest achievement of British historians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – would scarcely have been possible. Today the National Archives in Britain is the largest archive in the world (with over 100 miles of shelving) and offers probably the most up-to-date facilities to be found anywhere. In the course of the nineteenth century the archives of most other European countries were reorganized and made available to researchers. A comparable process has taken place in the new states of Asia and Africa which won independence between the 1940s and 1970s. The consolidation of the records of colonial administration into a national archive was one of the first tasks undertaken in pursuit of a properly documented national past.

1789年法国大革命爆发时,许多村民趁机袭击了当地地主的城堡,并销毁了所有记录他们所欠封建税款和劳役的文件。与此同时,许多其他文件也付之一炬,这对未来的法国历史学家来说是一次重大打击。(玛丽·埃文斯图片库)

When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, many villagers took the opportunity to attack the châteaux of their local landowners and destroy all documents recording the feudal taxes and services they owed. Many other documents went up in smoke at the same time, a major blow to future historians of French history. (Mary Evans Picture Library)

随着历史学家的研究兴趣扩展到社会和经济领域(见第三章),地方档案的保护和整理工作日益受到重视。这是一项艰巨的任务,却鲜为人知。根据1963年通过的立法,英格兰和威尔士的每个郡都必须设立郡档案馆,其职责是收集各类地方档案——例如季度法庭记录、教区记录、自治市镇记录和庄园记录等等。许多档案馆起源于二战前的地方倡议,它们的检索范围早已超越了半官方的范畴,涵盖了企业、地产和社团的记录。如今,所有郡档案馆的馆藏几乎肯定超过了国家档案馆。地方和区域研究首次成为专业历史学家可以实际开展的工作。

As the interests of historians have been enlarged to cover social and economic themes (see Chapter 3), the conservation and organization of local records have been increasingly taken in hand. This has been a formidable undertaking which has won scant public recognition. Under legislation passed in 1963 every county in England and Wales is required to maintain a county record office, whose job is to gather together the different categories of local record – quarter sessions, parish, borough and manorial records, etc. Many of the record offices originated in local initiatives taken before the Second World War, and they have extended their search well beyond the semi-official categories to include the records of businesses, estates and associations. Today the holdings of all the county record offices almost certainly exceed those of the National Archives. Local and regional studies have become a practicable proposition for professional historians for the first time.

访问限制

Restrictions on access

然而,没有任何一个地方的历史学家被赋予完全查阅公共档案的自由。如果允许历史学家查阅那些已不再使用的档案,他们看到的就只是几年前的资料。所有政府,无论其政治立场如何,都依赖于一定程度的保密性,而且它们往往会非常谨慎地解读这一要求。公务员理应确信,他们正式记录的内容在可预见的未来不会被公开讨论。在英国,公共记录的“保密期”因部门而异,差异很大,直到1958年才统一定为五十年。九年后,在历史学家的大力推动下,这一期限缩短至三十年。法国于1970年效仿,但在一些国家,例如意大利,五十年仍然是惯例。各国政府都毫不犹豫地无限期扣留与特别敏感事件相关的文档——例如英国的1916-1922年爱尔兰危机和1936年英国国王退位事件,以及法国在20世纪30年代末第三共和国衰落期间出现的一些问题。在美国,1975年的《信息自由法》赋予了历史学家和公众更广泛的信息获取权,但在其他地方,将信息公开期限缩短至三十年,或许已是公共记录获取自由化所能达到的极限。显然,这对当代史研究有着重大影响,历史学家不得不比他们预期更多地依赖当时已公开的信息,或是事后在回忆录和日记中披露的内容。

Nowhere, however, have historians been granted complete freedom of access to public records. If historians were allowed to inspect files as soon as they had ceased to be in current use, they would be reading material that was only a few years old. All governments, whatever their political complexion, depend on a measure of confidentiality, and they tend to interpret this requirement very rigorously. Civil servants expect to be reasonably secure in the knowledge that what they set down officially shall not be publicly discussed in the foreseeable future. In Britain the ‘closed period’ laid down for public records varied considerably according to the department of origin until it was standardized at fifty years in 1958. Nine years later, after a vigorous campaign by historians, this period was reduced to thirty years. France followed suit in 1970, but in some countries, for example Italy, fifty years is still the rule. Everywhere governments do not hesitate to withhold indefinitely documents that relate to particularly sensitive episodes – for example the Irish crisis of 1916–22 and the abdication of 1936 in Britain, and in France several issues that arose during the decline of the Third Republic in the late 1930s. In the United States the Freedom of Information Act of 1975 allows both historians and the general public much wider access, but elsewhere the reduction of the closed period to thirty years is probably as far as the liberalization of access to public records is likely to go. Clearly this has major implications for the study of contemporary history, where historians are forced to rely much more than they would like on what was made public at the time, or what has been disclosed retrospectively in memoirs and diaries.

1916-1922年的爱尔兰危机

Irish crisis of 1916–22

1916 年都柏林爆发的反对英国在爱尔兰统治的复活节起义,引发了爱尔兰共和军 (IRA) 与英国安全部队之间长期的游击战,最终导致爱尔兰自由邦于 1922 年成立。

The Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 against British rule in Ireland triggered a long period of guerrilla warfare between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the British security forces, which culminated in the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922.

退位

abdication

1936年,爱德华八世即位,但由于他拟迎娶美国女子沃利斯·辛普森夫人,引发争议。辛普森夫人即将与第二任丈夫离婚。为了不放弃辛普森夫人,爱德华八世决定退位,将王位传给他的弟弟约克公爵,约克公爵由此成为乔治六世国王。

The accession of King Edward VIII in 1936 proved problematic because of objections to his proposed marriage to Mrs Wallis Simpson, an American woman soon to divorce her second husband. Rather than give up Mrs Simpson, the king decided to abdicate in favour of his brother the Duke of York, who thus became King George VI.

20世纪30年代第三共和国的衰落

decline of Third Republic in 1930s

20世纪30年代,法国经历了一段内部冲突、罢工和政治危机时期,其情形有时似乎与当时陷入内战的西班牙如出一辙。1940年5月法国沦陷于德国之手后,法国社会的分裂彻底暴露出来。

In the 1930s France went through a period of internal conflict, strikes and political crisis that at times seemed to mirror contemporary Spain’s descent into civil war. The divisions in French society came into the open when the country fell to the Germans in May 1940.

然而,尽管这些限制令人恼火,但在英国,政府档案至少是集中管理且易于查阅的。地方公共记录的情况也大致如此。但私人持有的记录则截然不同。这些记录分散在各处,查阅条件也各不相同,有时甚至苛刻;虽然政府通常承认需要进行某种形式的档案保护,无论多么简陋,但那些可能没有实际用途的家庭和商业记录却常常被完全忽视。即使是那些只关注官方文件的历史学家,也不能忽视这些私人收藏。在1916年后内阁秘书处制定明确指导方针之前,退休的部长和官员通常会将官方文件保留在自己手中;从16世纪开始,源源不断的国家文件就这样流出了公共保管,直到今天,罗伯特·塞西尔任期内( 1596- 1612年)的大部分国家文件仍然保存在哈特菲尔德庄园。

Yet, however galling these restrictions may seem, in Britain government archives are at least centralized and accessible. The same broadly applies to local public records. The case is entirely different with records in private hands. These are widely dispersed and subject to varying – and sometimes perverse – conditions of access; and while governments have usually acknowledged the need for some kind of archive conservation, however rudimentary, family and business records, which may serve no practical function, have often been completely neglected. Nor can the historian whose interest is confined to official documents afford to ignore these private collections. Until the Cabinet Secretariat laid down firm guidelines after 1916, it was common for retiring ministers and officials to keep official papers in their possession; from the sixteenth century onwards, a steady flow of State Papers passed out of public custody in this way,32 and to this day most of the State Papers dating from Robert Cecil’s tenure of office (1596–1612) are at Hatfield House.

罗伯特·塞西尔(1563–1612)

Robert Cecil (1563–1612)

罗伯特·塞西尔是伊丽莎白一世女王的大臣威廉·塞西尔爵士的儿子,他先后在伊丽莎白一世和詹姆斯一世两位女王的统治下担任国务大臣。哈特菲尔德庄园是塞西尔家族的宅邸。

Son of Queen Elizabeth I’s minister, Sir William Cecil, Robert Cecil served as Secretary of State under both Elizabeth and James I. Hatfield House is the Cecil family home.

在大多数欧洲国家,十九世纪建立的国家图书馆的一项职能就是确保保存最珍贵的私人手稿。英国国家图书馆的历史可以追溯到1753年大英博物馆的成立。在其最初的手稿收藏中,从历史学家的角度来看,最重要的当属17世纪早期收藏家兼古物学家罗伯特·科顿爵士的藏品。这些珍宝包括大量国家文件、一份《盎格鲁-撒克逊编年史》以及现存四份《大宪章》“副本”(即1215年约翰国王与贵族签订协议时制作的副本)中的两份。此后,通过购买和捐赠,大英图书馆已成为英国除国家档案馆之外最大的历史手稿收藏机构。即便如此,其他地方收藏的重要文献数量仍然难以估量。许多私人收藏已捐赠或无限期借给公共图书馆或郡档案馆。但还有更多藏品仍然掌握在私人、公司和协会手中。一百多年来,历史手稿委员会一直致力于保护英国私人收藏的手稿并寻找它们的下落,但对于那些具有侦探般敏锐洞察力的历史学家来说,仍然大有可为。纳米尔在其十八世纪英国政治研究中依赖的几批私人文件集,正是在他所谓的“横跨全国的寻觅”中被发现的。 33

In most European countries one of the functions of the national libraries that were set up during the nineteenth century has been to secure possession of the most valuable private manuscript collections. Britain’s national library dates back to the foundation of the British Museum in 1753. Of its foundation manuscript collections, the most important from the historian’s point of view is that of Sir Robert Cotton, the early seventeenth-century collector and antiquarian; this numbered among its treasures a great many State Papers, one version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and two of the four surviving ‘exemplifications’ of Magna Carta (i.e. copies made at the time of the agreement between King John and the barons in 1215). Purchases and bequests since then have made the British Library far and away the largest repository of historical manuscripts in Britain outside the National Archives. Even so, the number of important documents held elsewhere is incalculable. Many private collections have been given or loaned indefinitely to public libraries, or to the county record offices. But many more remain in the hands of private individuals, companies and associations. For over a hundred years the Historical Manuscripts Commission has promoted the care of manuscripts privately held in Britain and located their whereabouts, but there is still scope for the historian with a nose for detective work. Several of the collections of private papers on which Namier relied for his studies in eighteenth-century English politics were discovered during what he called his ‘cross-country paper-chases’.33

挖掘原始资料

Unearthing source material

普通民众手中的个人及零散资料的情况最为糟糕——例如小企业的账簿、地方俱乐部的会议记录、日常私人信件等等。地方档案馆和历史手稿委员会的搜集范围都远不及此,然而,如果历史学家想要真正实现他们经常宣称的“关注大众而非仅仅关注统治阶级”的愿景,那么日常文献的收集就至关重要。这是各地以地方视角研究历史的学者们的共同任务,而有时,一些初级研究人员也会有令人振奋的发现。由于人们通常意识不到自己手中掌握着可能具有历史意义的资料,历史学家不能坐等文献被主动提供;他们需要积极开展宣传工作,并主动出击去寻找这些文献。

The position is worst in the case of the personal and ephemeral materials in the hands of ordinary people – the account books of small businesses, the minute books of local clubs, everyday personal correspondence and the like. Neither the local record offices nor the Historical Manuscripts Commission cast their net as widely as this, yet the recovery of everyday documentation is important if historians are ever to make good their oft-stated aspiration to treat the masses and not just their masters. This is a task for historians with a local focus everywhere, and exciting finds are sometime made by apprentice researchers. Since people are usually unaware that they hold material that might be historically significant, historians cannot wait for documents to be brought forward; they need to engage in propaganda and go out in search of them.

人们或许会认为档案管理员和历史学家之间存在着明确的分工,前者负责查找资料,而后者负责查找历史资料。前者负责收集资料,后者负责运用这些资料。这些例子表明,历史学家实际上不能把搜寻文献的任务完全交给别人。因此,任何历史研究项目的第一步都是要确定所有史料的完整性。即使在早期阶段,也可能需要相当大的毅力和创造力。

It might be supposed that a clear division of labour exists between archivists and historians, with the former locating the materials and the latter putting them to use. These examples show that historians cannot in practice leave the task of tracking down documentation to others. The first step in any programme of historical research, then, is to establish the full extent of the sources. Considerable perseverance and ingenuity may be required even at this early stage.

罗马历史学家

Roman historians

罗马历史对历史学家来说是个难题,因为我们太过依赖罗马史学家的记载,而我们对他们的史料却知之甚少。尤利乌斯·凯撒(公元前100-44年)详细记述了他在高卢的战役以及与政治对手庞培的战争,这些记载通常被认为很有价值,但却带有明显的片面性。科尔内利乌斯·塔西佗(公元55-120年)似乎利用他查阅元老院记录的机会撰写了帝国早期历史。塔西佗对帝国权力的增长持悲观态度,但由于我们无法查阅他自己的史料,也就无从判断他对事件的描述是否准确。盖乌斯·苏埃托尼乌斯(公元69-140年)撰写了一系列关于前十二位罗马皇帝的简短传记,这些传记成为了传记写作的典范,但他习惯于将准确的细节与流言蜚语并列记录,却不加区分,这使得他的史料成为一个特别成问题的来源。

Roman history poses a problem for the historian because we are so heavily dependent on the accounts of Roman historians about whose sources we know very little. Julius Caesar (100–44 bce) wrote detailed accounts of his campaigns in Gaul and against his political rival Pompey which are generally regarded as valuable but heavily one-sided. Cornelius Tacitus (ad 55–120) seems to have used his access to senatorial records to write his histories of the early years of the empire. Tacitus took a gloomy view of the growth of imperial power, but without access to his own sources we have no yardstick against which to check his version of events. Gaius Suetonius (ad 69–140) wrote a series of short sketches of the first twelve Roman Emperors which became the model for biographical writing, but his habit of recording accurate detail alongside gossip and hearsay, without any attempt to distinguish between the two, makes him a particularly problematic source.

讽刺作为一种来源

Satire as a source

讽刺作品对历史学家而言既是强有力的史料来源,也是难以研究的资料来源。它很容易过时,而且常常充斥着对早已湮没无闻的人物和事件的典故和引用。讽刺作品依赖于反讽——即作者用与本意相反的语言表达——这可能会误导粗心的学者。此外,人们也很容易错误地认为讽刺作家的观点是普遍接受的。十八世纪的英国曾有像《闲谈者》(The Tatler)《旁观者》(The Spectator)这样的讽刺期刊,市场十分繁荣。乔纳森·斯威夫特的著名作品《格列佛游记》最初是对辉格党政治和社会的辛辣讽刺,但如今它却以儿童奇幻故事的形式流传下来,这恐怕是斯威夫特本人始料未及的。

Satire is a potent but difficult source for historians. It dates very quickly and is often full of allusions and references to people and events that have sunk into obscurity. Its reliance on irony, in which writers say the opposite of what they mean, can mislead the unwary student. It is also easy to fall into the trap of assuming wrongly that the satirists’ views were universally held. There was a thriving market in eighteenth-century England for satirical journals, like The Tatler and The Spectator. Jonathan Swift’s famous Gulliver’s Travels was originally a scathing satire on Whig politics and society, though it has survived as a fantasy tale for children in a way Swift could never have anticipated.

“纳米尔主义”

‘Namierism’

刘易斯·纳米尔爵士(1888–1960)是一位研究十八世纪政治史的历史学家,他发展了一种新的政治史研究方法。他通过详尽的文献研究来研究历史。他1929年出版的《乔治三世登基时的政治结构》一书,以1760年每一位下议院议员和上议院议员的传记资料为基础。这种对制度进行全面研究的方法,正式名称为人物志。他对纽卡斯尔公爵(1754-1756年和1757-1762年任首相)的研究也采用了类似的详尽方法,他曾说过,他对公爵的了解甚至超过了对自己妻子的了解。纳米尔的研究成果促成了多卷本《英国议会史》的编纂,该书包含了对每位议员和选区的详细研究。

Sir Lewis Namier (1888–1960) was a historian of eighteenth-century politics who developed a new approach to politicals history through exhaustive documentary study. His 1929 work The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III was based upon the accumulation of biographical details of every single MP and member of the House of Lords in 1760. This comprehensive approach to the study of institutions is properly known as prosopography. He adopted a similarly exhaustive approach to his study of the Duke of Newcastle (Prime Minister 1754–6 and 1757–62), whom he once said he felt he knew better than he knew his own wife. Namier’s work led to the setting up of the multi-volume History of Parliament, which contains detailed studies of individual MPs and constituencies.

延伸阅读

Further reading

JJ Bagley《历史诠释》,第一卷:英国中世纪历史资料,1066-1540 年,企鹅出版社,1965 年。

J.J. Bagley, Historical Interpretation, vol. I: Sources of English Medieval History, 1066–1540, Penguin, 1965.

JJ Bagley《历史诠释》,第二卷:英国历史资料,1540 年至今,企鹅出版社,1971 年。

J.J. Bagley, Historical Interpretation, vol. II: Sources of English History, 1540 to the Present Day, Penguin, 1971.

Miriam Dobson & Benjamin Ziemann (编),阅读原始资料, Routledge, 2008 年。

Miriam Dobson & Benjamin Ziemann (eds), Reading Primary Sources, Routledge, 2008.

Michael Moss,《档案、历史学家和未来》,载于 Michael Bentley(编),《史学指南》,Routledge,1997 年。

Michael Moss, ‘Archives, the historian and the future’, in Michael Bentley (ed.), Companion to Historiography, Routledge, 1997.

Elizabeth Hallam & Michael Roper,《首都与国家档案:伦敦七个世纪的公共档案收藏》,《伦敦杂志》IV,1978 年。

Elizabeth Hallam & Michael Roper, ‘The capital and the records of the nation: seven centuries of housing the public records in London’, The London Journal, IV, 1978.

Rebecca Earle(编),书信体:信件和写信人,1600–1945,Ashgate,1999。

Rebecca Earle (ed.), Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-Writers, 1600–1945, Ashgate, 1999.

David Knowles《伟大的历史企业》,纳尔逊,1963 年。

David Knowles, Great Historical Enterprises, Nelson, 1963.

Andrew McDonald,《公共记录与现代历史学家》,《二十世纪英国史》第一卷,1990 年。

Andrew McDonald, ‘Public records and the modern historian’, Twentieth-Century British History, I, 1990.

笔记

Notes

  1   Louis Gottschalk,《理解历史:历史方法入门》,Knopf出版社,1950年,第53-55页。

  1  Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method, Knopf, 1950, pp. 53–5.

  2   Marc Bloch,《历史学家的技艺》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,1954 年,第 61 页。

  2  Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, Manchester University Press, 1954, p. 61.

  3  摘自威尔士的杰拉尔德 (Gerald of Wales),《Expugnatio Hibernica》,翻译出自 DC Douglas 和 GW Greenaway (编) 的《英国历史文献,1042–1189》,Eyre & Spottiswoode 出版社,1953 年,第 386 页的拉丁文。

  3  Extract from Gerald of Wales, Expugnatio Hibernica, translated from the Latin in D.C. Douglas and G.W. Greenaway (eds), English Historical Documents, 1042–1189, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1953, p. 386.

  4  最好的例子是教皇庇护二世于 1460 年代后期撰写的自传。参见 Leona C. Gabel(编),《文艺复兴时期教皇的回忆录:庇护二世的评论》,Allen & Unwin 出版社,1960 年。

  4  The best example is the autobiography of Pope Pius II, composed in the late 1460s. See Leona C. Gabel (ed.), Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope: The Commentaries of Pius II, Allen & Unwin, 1960.

  5   David Reynolds,《掌控历史:丘吉尔参与和书写第二次世界大战》,Allen Lane,2004 年。

  5  David Reynolds, In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War, Allen Lane, 2004.

  6  引自 David Vincent,《面包、知识和自由:十九世纪工人阶级自传研究》,Methuen 出版社,1981 年,第 26 页。

  6  Quoted in David Vincent, Bread, Knowledge and Freedom: A Study of Nineteenth-Century Working-Class Autobiography, Methuen, 1981, p. 26.

  7  参见 Kellow Chesney,《克里米亚战争读本》,Severn House,1975 年。

  7  See Kellow Chesney, Crimean War Reader, Severn House, 1975.

  8   EP Thompson 和 Eileen Yeo(编),《不为人知的梅休:1849-50 年晨报选集》,企鹅出版社,1973 年。

  8  E.P. Thompson and Eileen Yeo (eds), The Unknown Mayhew: Selections from the Morning Chronicle, 1849–50, Penguin, 1973.

  9   Peter Gay,《资产阶级经验:从维多利亚到弗洛伊德》,第二卷:温柔的激情,牛津大学出版社,1986 年;John Tosh,《男人的地位:维多利亚时代英国的男性气质和中产阶级家庭》,耶鲁大学出版社,1999 年,第 3 章

  9  Peter Gay, The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud, vol. II: The Tender Passion, Oxford University Press, 1986; John Tosh, A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England, Yale University Press, 1999, ch. 3.

10   VH Galbraith,《公共记录的使用导论》,牛津大学出版社,1934 年,第 54-55 页。

10  V.H. Galbraith, An Introduction to the Use of the Public Records, Oxford University Press, 1934, pp. 54–5.

11  托马斯·克伦威尔致约翰·哈丁,1536 年 7 月 8 日,引自 GR Elton,《政策与警察》,剑桥大学出版社,1972 年,第 342-343 页。

11  Thomas Cromwell to John Harding, 8 July 1536, quoted in G.R. Elton, Policy and Police, Cambridge University Press, 1972, pp. 342–3.

12   Garrett Mattingly,《文艺复兴时期的外交》,Cape,1962 年,第 110、306 页。

12  Garrett Mattingly, Renaissance Diplomacy, Cape, 1962, pp. 110, 306.

13  例如,参见 Laura Gowing,《家庭危险:早期现代伦敦女性的言语和性》,牛津大学出版社,1996 年。

13  See, for example, Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women’s Words and Sex in Early Modern London, Oxford University Press, 1996.

14  例如,参见乔治·鲁德 (George Rudé) 的《十八世纪的巴黎和伦敦:民众抗议研究》,丰塔纳出版社,1970 年。有关评论,请参见乔安娜·伊内斯 (Joanna Innes) 和约翰·斯泰尔斯 (John Styles) 的《犯罪浪潮:关于十八世纪英国犯罪和刑事司法的最新著述》,《英国研究杂志》第 25 卷,1986 年,第 380-435 页。

14  See, for example, George Rudé, Paris and London in the Eighteenth Century: Studies in Popular Protest, Fontana, 1970. For a critical review, see Joanna Innes and John Styles, ‘The crime wave: recent writing on crime and criminal justice in eighteenth-century England’, Journal of British Studies, XXV, 1986, pp. 380–435.

15   EP Thompson,《烛光写作》,Merlin Press,1980 年,第 126 页。

15  E.P. Thompson, Writing by Candlelight, Merlin Press, 1980, p. 126.

16   Alison Hanham(编),《塞利书信集 1472–1488》,牛津大学出版社,1975 年。

16  Alison Hanham (ed.), The Cely Letters 1472–1488, Oxford University Press, 1975.

17   George Unwin,《塞缪尔·奥尔德诺和阿克赖特家族》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,1924 年。

17  George Unwin, Samuel Oldknow and the Arkwrights, Manchester University Press, 1924.

18   Peter Matthias,《英国酿酒业,1700-1830》,剑桥大学出版社,1959 年,第 xii 页。

18  Peter Matthias, The Brewing Industry in England, 1700–1830, Cambridge University Press, 1959, p. xii.

19   Susan Whyman,“‘纸质访问’:从 Verney 家族档案中看到的复辟后信件”,载于 Rebecca Earle(编),《书信自我:信件和写信人,1600–1945》,Ashgate 出版社,1999 年,第 25 页。

19  Susan Whyman, ‘“Paper visits”: the post-Restoration letter as seen through the Verney family archive’, in Rebecca Earle (ed.), Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-Writers, 1600–1945, Ashgate, 1999, p. 25.

20   David Fitzpatrick,《慰藉之海:爱尔兰移民澳大利亚的个人记述》,康奈尔大学出版社,1994 年。

20  David Fitzpatrick, Oceans of Consolation: Personal Accounts of Irish Migration to Australia, Cornell University Press, 1994.

21   Pat Jalland,《妇女、婚姻与政治,1860–1914》,牛津大学出版社,1988 年,第 3–4 页。

21  Pat Jalland, Women, Marriage and Politics, 1860–1914, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 3–4.

22   HH Asquith,《致 Venetia Stanley 的信》,M. 和 E. Brock 编辑,牛津大学出版社,1982 年,第 508 页。

22  H.H. Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley, ed. M. and E. Brock, Oxford University Press, 1982, p. 508.

23   MRD Foot 和 HCG Matthew(编),《格莱斯顿日记》,14 卷,牛津大学出版社,1968-94 年。

23  M.R.D. Foot and H.C.G. Matthew (eds), The Gladstone Diaries, 14 vols, Oxford University Press, 1968–94.

24  本·皮姆洛特,《休·道尔顿的日记》,《听众》,1980 年 7 月 17 日。日记的编辑版本由伦敦政治经济学院与乔纳森·凯普出版社于 1986 年出版,共两卷。

24  Ben Pimlott, ‘Hugh Dalton’s diaries’, The Listener, 17 July 1980. An edited version of the diaries was published by LSE in association with Jonathan Cape in two volumes in 1986.

25  理查德·克罗斯曼,《内阁大臣日记》,第一卷,哈米什·汉密尔顿和凯普出版社,1975 年,第 12 页。

25  Richard Crossman, The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, vol. I, Hamish Hamilton and Cape, 1975, p. 12.

26   www.oldbaileyonline.org

26  www.oldbaileyonline.org

27   David Knowles,《伟大的历史企业》,纳尔逊,1963 年,第 65-97 页。

27  David Knowles, Great Historical Enterprises, Nelson, 1963, pp. 65–97.

28   www.1901censusonline.comwww.1911census.co.uk

28  www.1901censusonline.com; www.1911census.co.uk

29  乔治·列斐伏尔,《1789 年的大恐慌》,新左派出版社,1973 年,第 100-121 页。

29  Georges Lefebvre, The Great Fear of 1789, New Left Books, 1973, pp. 100–21.

30   Elizabeth M. Hallam 和 Michael Roper,“首都与国家档案:七个世纪以来伦敦公共档案的保存”,《伦敦杂志》,IV,1978 年,第 74-75 页。

30  Elizabeth M. Hallam and Michael Roper, ‘The capital and the records of the nation: seven centuries of housing the public records in London’, The London Journal, IV, 1978, pp. 74–5.

31   RB Wernham,《十六、十七世纪的公共记录》,载 Levi Fox(编),《十六、十七世纪的英国历史学术》,牛津大学出版社,1956 年,第 21-22 页。

31  R.B. Wernham, ‘The public records in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in Levi Fox (ed.), English Historical Scholarship in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Oxford University Press, 1956, pp. 21–2.

32  同上,第 20-3 页。

32  Ibid., pp. 20–3.

33  朱莉娅·纳米尔,《刘易斯·纳米尔:传记》,牛津大学出版社,1971 年,第 14 页。 282.

33  Julia Namier, Lewis Namier: A Biography, Oxford University Press, 1971, p. 282.

第五章

Chapter Five

利用这些资源

Using the sources

找到原始资料后,历史学家应该如何着手运用?本章探讨了历史学家采用的不同方法:有些历史学家从一系列具体问题入手,有些则顺应资料本身的线索展开研究。本章区分了资料批评家和历史学家。前者对原始资料进行详尽的分析,后者虽然也进行分析,但会将资料置于更广泛的历史语境中进行解读。历史学家需要对资料进行伪造鉴定,识别并考虑作者的偏见,并懂得如何发现已被删除或掩盖的史料。然而,有时最能揭示真相的方法是历史学家透过字里行间,挖掘出作者几乎未曾意识到的隐晦假设和信念。

Having tracked the source material down, how should the historian set about using it? This chapter looks at different approaches that historians adopt: some start out with a specific set of questions, some follow whatever line of enquiry the sources themselves throw up. The chapter draws a distinction between the source critic, who analyses source material in great detail, and the historian, who does this too but puts the sources in the context of a wider knowledge of the period to which they relate. Sources have to be analysed for forgery, the author’s bias has to be detected and taken account of, and historians need to know how to spot when material has been removed from the record or covered up. Sometimes, however, the most revealing approach is when the historian reads between the lines to draw out the hidden assumptions and beliefs the author was hardly aware of showing.

如果历史学家的职责是根据现存遗存构建对过去的诠释,那么前一章所述的浩瀚而多样的文献资料所带来的影响就令人望而生畏。在进行综合分析之前,需要完成如此多的前期工作,谁又能指望成为某个国家在特定时期内的权威呢?如果我们所说的“权威”是指对史料的完全掌握,那么简而言之:只有研究遥远且文献稀少的时期的历史学家才能做到。例如,一位专注的学者完全有能力掌握所有从英格兰早期诺曼时期流传下来的书面材料。然而,岁月的流逝已使这些材料的数量急剧减少,而那些幸存下来的——尤其是记录性文献——往往……过去人们追求的是简洁和经济。然而,对于后来的任何时期来说,这种理想都无法实现。从中世纪盛期开始,越来越多的文献被记录在纸张或羊皮纸上,保存至今的可能性也越来越大。自20世纪初以来,文献数量的增长速度更是惊人。1913年至1938年间,英国外交部每年收到的公文和文件数量从约6.8万份增加到22.4万份。目前,国家档案馆每年新增的文献大约能填满一英里长的书架。面对如此浩如烟海的文献,历史学家该从何入手呢?

If the historian’s business is to construct interpretations of the past from its surviving remains, then the implications of the vast and varied array of documentary sources described in the previous chapter are daunting. Who can hope to become an authority on even one country during a narrowly defined time-span when so much spadework has to be done before the task of synthesis can be attempted? If by ‘authority’ we mean total mastery of the sources, the short answer is: only the historian of remote and thinly documented epochs. It is, for example, not beyond the capacity of a dedicated scholar to master all the written materials that survive from the early Norman period in England. The vicissitudes of time have drastically reduced their number, and those that survive – especially record sources – tend towards the terse and economical. For any later period, however, the ideal is unattainable. From the High Middle Ages onwards more and more was committed to paper or parchment, with ever-increasing prospects of survival to our own day. Since the beginning of the twentieth century the rate of increase has surged ahead at breakneck speed. Between 1913 and 1938 the number of dispatches and papers received annually by the British Foreign Office increased from some 68,000 to 224,000.1 Additions to the National Archives at present fill approximately 1 mile of shelving a year. Amid this documentary surfeit, where does the historian begin?

纪元

epochs

时期,时代。

Periods, eras.

变迁

vicissitudes

命运的转变。

Changes in fortune.

中世纪盛期

High Middle Ages

该术语通常用于指代十一、十二世纪,常被认为是中世纪社会和文化的鼎盛时期。

Term usually applied to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, often taken to mark the climax of medieval society and culture.

I

使用原始素材的不同方法

Different approaches to using source material

归根结底,指导原创研究方向的原则可以归纳为两条。第一条原则是,历史学家选取一个或一组与其研究领域相关的史料——例如某个特定法庭的记录或一批外交信函——并从中提取有价值的信息,让史料的内容决定研究的性质。理查德·科布回忆起他第一次接触法国大革命档案的经历,描述了以史料为导向的研究方法所带来的乐趣:

Ultimately the principles governing the direction of original research can be reduced to two. According to the first, the historian takes one source or group of sources that falls within his or her general area of interest – say the records of a particular court or a body of diplomatic correspondence – and extracts whatever is of value, allowing the content of the source to determine the nature of the enquiry. Recalling his first experience of the French Revolutionary archives, Richard Cobb describes the delights offered by a source-oriented approach:

我越来越享受研究和收集资料的乐趣,即便这些资料往往与主题相当无关,但收集本身却成了目的。我允许自己被偶然发现的厚重档案引向意想不到的方向——它可能是断头台上遇难者的情书,也可能是截获的伦敦来信,或是棉纺商人的账簿和样品,或是英国在巴黎殖民地的命运,或是九月大屠杀或某次“旅行”目击者证词。

More and more I enjoyed the excitement of research and the acquisition of material, often on quite peripheral subjects, as ends in themselves. I allowed myself to be deflected down unexpected channels, by the chance discovery of a bulky dossier – it might be the love letters of a guillotiné, or intercepted correspondence from London, or the account-books and samples of a commercial traveller in cotton, or the fate of the English colony in Paris, or eyewitness accounts of the September Massacres or of one of the journées.2

第二种方法,即问题导向型方法,则恰恰相反。这种方法首先提出一个具体的历史问题,通常是在阅读二手文献后产生的,然后研究相关的原始资料;研究者忽略这些资料可能对其他问题产生的影响,尽可能直接地得出结论。每种方法都有其局限性。虽然以资料为导向的方法适用于新发现的资料,最终可能只会得到一堆杂乱无章的数据。以问题为导向的方法听起来合情合理,也可能符合大多数人对研究的理解。但往往很难事先判断哪些资料相关的。正如后文将要阐述的,一些最意想不到的资料有时反而能提供启发,而那些显而易见的资料则可能使历史学家过于认同其来源机构的诉求。此外,对于任何十九世纪或二十世纪西方历史主题,无论其时间或地域范围如何,相关资料都极其繁杂,几乎无法避免进一步筛选,而这也带来了遗漏关键证据的风险。

The second, or problem-oriented, approach is the exact opposite. A specific historical question is formulated, usually prompted by a reading of the secondary authorities, and the relevant primary sources are then studied; the bearing that these sources may have on other issues is ignored, the researcher proceeding as directly as possible to the point where he or she can present some conclusions. Each method encounters snags. The source-oriented approach, although appropriate for a newly discovered source, may yield only an incoherent jumble of data. The problem-oriented approach sounds like common sense and probably corresponds to most people’s idea of research. But it is often difficult to tell in advance what sources are relevant. As will be shown later, the most improbable sources are sometimes found to be illuminating, while the obvious ones may lead the historian into too close an identification with the concerns of the organization that produced them. Moreover, for any topic in Western nineteenth or twentieth-century history, however circumscribed by time or place, the sources are so unwieldy that further selection can hardly be avoided, and with it the risk of leaving vital evidence untouched.

断头台

guillotiné

法国大革命期间被断头台处决的人。

Someone who was executed by guillotine during the French Revolution.

日子

journées

字面意思是“日子”。这个词用来形容法国大革命期间一些特别戏剧性的时刻。

Literally ‘days’. The term was applied to moments of particular drama during the French Revolution.

在实践中,这两种方法通常不会完全排斥另一种,但它们之间的平衡程度差异很大。一些历史学家职业生涯伊始便着手于一个范围狭窄、资料有限的研究项目;另一些历史学家则被赋予一项庞大的研究任务,而任务的指导却极其模糊。前者总体上更为常见,因为博士学位——大多数学院派历史学家都要经历的正式学徒期——带来了快速产出的压力。大量的研究——或许是大部分研究——并非在于挖掘新的史料,而在于带着新的问题去审视已知的资料。然而,过于专注于少数几个问题可能会导致证据被断章取义和曲解——正如一位评论家所称的“史料挖掘”。因此,历史学家与其史料之间的关系至关重要,它必须是一种互动与交流。许多历史学家都有过这样的经历:他们最初带着一组问题出发,却发现原本以为能提供答案的资料反而将他们的研究引向了截然不同的方向。埃马纽埃尔·勒鲁瓦·拉杜里最初着手研究朗格多克农村的土地税登记册,目的是记录该地区资本主义的诞生;但他最终发现自己研究的是该地区广义上的社会结构,尤其是人口变化的影响:

In practice neither of these approaches is usually pursued to the complete exclusion of the other, but the balance struck between them varies a good deal. Some historians begin their careers with a narrowly defined project based on a limited range of sources; others are let loose on a major archive with only the vaguest of briefs. The former is on the whole the more common, because of the pressure to produce quick results that is imposed by the Ph.D. degree – the formal apprenticeship served by most academic historians. A great deal of research – probably the larger part – consists not in ferreting out new sources but in turning to well-known materials with new questions in mind. Yet too single-minded a preoccupation with a narrow set of issues may lead to evidence being taken out of context and misinterpreted – ‘source-mining’ as one critic has called it.3 It is vital, therefore, that the relationship between the historian and his or her sources is one of give and take. Many historians have had the experience of setting out with one set of questions, only to find that the sources which they had supposed would furnish the answers instead directed their research on to quite a different path. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie first turned to the land-tax registers of rural Languedoc with a view to documenting the birth of capitalism in that region; he found himself instead investigating its social structure in the broadest sense, and in particular the impact of demographic change:

我的经历堪称经典:我原本想掌握某个资料来源来印证我年轻时的信念,但最终却是这个资料来源反过来掌控了我,它以自身的节奏、时间顺序和独特的真理来诠释我。4

Mine was the classic misadventure; I had wanted to master a source in order to confirm my youthful convictions, but it was finally the source that mastered me by imposing its own rhythms, its own chronology, and its own particular truth.4

至少,历史学家必须随时准备根据史料直接提出的问题来调整最初的研究目标。缺乏这种灵活性,历史学家就可能对史料进行牵强附会,从而无法充分挖掘其潜力。真正的史学大师,是那些毕生接触各种史料,并因此对哪些问题能够产生价值有着敏锐洞察力的人。尽管完全掌握所有史料几乎不可能,但它仍应是我们的理想。

At the very least there must be a readiness to modify the original objective in the light of the questions that arise directly from the sources. Without this flexibility historians risk imposing on their evidence and failing to tap its full potential. The true master of the craft is someone whose sense of what questions can profitably be asked has been sharpened by a lifetime’s exposure to the sources in all their variety. Mastery of all the sources must remain the ideal, however improbable its complete accomplishment may be.

博士

Ph.D.

哲学博士学位。通常需要经过三年细致的档案研究,最终撰写出一篇论文——一篇论证严密、以短篇著作形式呈现的案例。

Doctor of Philosophy. This is usually obtained after three years of detailed archival study resulting in the production of a thesis – a carefully argued case presented in the form of a short book.

人口统计

demographic

关于人口变化。

Concerning changes in population.

分析来源

Analysing sources

理想状态之所以大多难以企及,不仅在于史料浩如烟海,更在于每一份史料都需要仔细甄别。因为原始史料并非一本打开的书,能立即提供答案。它们可能并非表面看起来那样;它们所蕴含的意义可能远超表面所见;它们可能以晦涩难懂、陈旧过时的形式呈现,令外行人难以理解。历史学家在正确评估一份文献的意义之前,需要探究其产生的方式、时间和原因。这既需要运用相关的知识,也需要运用批判性的思维。有人曾说过,“史料就像古代的孩童,只有被问及时才会开口,而且不会与陌生人交谈。” 此外,它们也不会轻易向匆忙之人敞开心扉。即使对于经验丰富、善于钻研史料的历史学家而言,研究原始史料也是一项耗时的工作;而对于新手来说,这更是难上加难。

The reason why the ideal remains for the most part unattainable is not only that the sources are so numerous but also that each of them requires so much careful appraisal. For the primary sources are not an open book, offering instant answers. They may not be what they seem to be; they may signify very much more than is immediately apparent; they may be couched in obscure and antiquated forms that are meaningless to the untutored eye. Before the historian can properly assess the significance of a document, he or she needs to find out how, when and why it came into being. This requires the application of both supporting knowledge and sceptical intelligence. ‘Records’, it has been said, ‘like the little children of long ago, only speak when they are spoken to, and they will not talk to strangers.’5 Nor, it might be added, will they be very forthcoming to anyone in a tearing hurry. Even for the experienced historian with green fingers, research in the primary sources is time-consuming; for the novice it can be painfully slow.

历史学家早已意识到原始资料的价值——而且不仅仅是那些更容易获取的叙事性资料。令人惊讶的是,许多中世纪编年史家对当时的重大国家文件表现出浓厚的兴趣,并在他们的著作中引用了这些文件。莎士比亚时代最杰出的英国历史学家威廉·卡姆登获准查阅国家文件,以便撰写伊丽莎白一世统治时期的历史。但学术性的史料批判是一个相对较新的发展。尽管文艺复兴时期的历史学家学识渊博,但他们大多无法掌握史料批判。例如,卡姆登将他的记录资料视为“绝对可靠的证据”。6许多支撑现代史料批判的技术进步都发生在十七世纪——尤其是伟大的本笃会学者让·马比隆。但起初,​​他们的应用仅限于修道院历史和圣徒传记,历史学家们仍然生活在一个与史料批评家(érudit )截然不同的世界里。十八世纪最伟大的历史学家爱德华·吉本在其著作《罗马帝国衰亡史》 (1776-1788)中大量借鉴了史料批评家的研究成果,但他并没有效仿他们的方法。

Historians have long been aware of the value of primary sources – and not merely the more accessible sources of a narrative kind. A surprising number of medieval chroniclers showed a keen interest in the great state documents of the day and reproduced them in their writings. William Camden, the leading English historian in Shakespeare’s generation, was granted access to the State Papers in order to write a history of Elizabeth I’s reign. But scholarly source criticism is a much more recent development. It was largely beyond the historians of the Renaissance, for all their sophistication. Camden, for example, regarded his record sources as ‘infallible testimonies’.6 Many of the technical advances that underpin modern source criticism were made during the seventeenth century – notably by the great Benedictine scholar Jean Mabillon. But their application was at first confined to monastic history and the lives of the saints, and historians continued to live in a different world from that of the source critic (érudit). Edward Gibbon, the greatest historian of the eighteenth century, drew heavily on the findings of the érudits in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88), but he did not emulate their methods.

本笃会

Benedictine

圣本笃修会成员。

Of the monastic Order of St Benedict.

英国历史学家爱德华·吉本(1737-1794)曾说,他是在一个傍晚坐在罗马广场的废墟中时,萌生了撰写其著名著作《罗马帝国衰亡史》的想法。吉本首先提出了一个核心问题——究竟是什么导致了如此强大的帝国走向崩溃?——并始终带着这个问题去研读历史文献。他的结论是,帝国的衰亡很大程度上是由于基督教的破坏性影响。这一结论与启蒙运动的激进思想相符,但也引发了公众的轩然大波。(布里奇曼艺术图书馆/私人收藏)

The English historian Edward Gibbon (1737–94) said that the idea for writing his famous account of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire came to him while sitting one evening in the ruins of the forum in Rome. Gibbon started with one major question – what caused such a mighty empire to collapse? – and he embarked on his reading of the historical records with that question always in view. His conclusion, that it was due in large part to the debilitating effects of Christianity, was in line with the radical thinking of the Enlightenment but created a storm of public controversy. (Bridgeman Art Library/Private collection)

将批判性的史料研究方法引入主流历史写作是兰克最重要的成就。他早期的声名鹊起和晋升,得益于他对圭恰尔迪尼学术缺陷的毫不留情的揭露。他对档案研究的热情可谓惊人。通过在柏林大学举办的研讨会,他培养了一批接受过批判性史料评估训练的新型学院派历史学家——尤其是那些在十九世纪首次向公众开放的大量档案资料。阿克顿勋爵称赞兰克为“档案研究的真正先驱”,这或许有些夸张。 7 兰克提出的“史料评估与历史写作必须由同一人负责”的观点获得了广泛认可。兰克方法传入英国的时间相对较晚,这主要归功于威廉·斯塔布斯,他的声誉不仅建立在对英国宪政史的研究之上,也建立在他对中世纪历史文献一丝不苟的编辑之上。时至今日,马克·布洛赫所说的“与文献的斗争”仍然是区分专业历史学家和业余历史学家的重要特征之一

The introduction of a critical approach to the sources into mainstream history writing was Ranke’s most important achievement. He owed his early fame and promotion to a merciless exposé of Guicciardini’s faults as a scholar. His appetite for archival research was truly prodigious. And through his seminar at the University of Berlin he brought into being a new breed of academic historians trained in the critical evaluation of primary sources – and especially the many archival sources that were being opened to research for the first time during the nineteenth century. It was with pardonable exaggeration that Lord Acton saluted Ranke as ‘the real originator of the heroic study of records’.7 Ranke won acceptance for the idea that the evaluation of sources and the writing of history must be kept in the same hands. The spread of Rankean method to Britain came comparatively late; it was primarily due to William Stubbs, whose reputation rested not only on his studies of English constitutional history but also on his scrupulous editing of medieval historical texts. To this day, what Marc Bloch called ‘the struggle with documents’ is one of the things that distinguishes the professional historian from the amateur.8

阿克顿勋爵(1834–1902)

Lord Acton (1834–1902)

英国历史学家,剑桥大学钦定现代史教授。阿克顿学识渊博,且痴迷于做笔记。他编辑了多卷本的《剑桥现代史》,但始终未能撰写一部重要的历史著作。他曾在信中写道:“权力导致腐败,绝对权力导致绝对腐败。”

British historian, Regius (i.e. royal) Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. Acton was formidably learned, and an obsessive note-taker. He edited the multi-volume Cambridge Modern History but never got round to writing a major work of history. It was he who wrote in a letter that ‘power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’.

II

是正品吗?

Is it authentic?

评估一份文件的第一步是检验其真实性;这有时被称为外部批判。作者、写作地点和日期是否与其声称相符?这些问题对于诸如宪章、遗嘱和合同等法律文件尤为重要,因为这些文件可能关乎财富、地位和特权。中世纪时期,许多皇家和教会宪章被伪造,其目的要么是为了取代遗失的真品,要么是为了攫取从未授予的权利和特权。《君士坦丁赠礼》是其中最著名的伪造文件之一,这份八世纪的文件声称将意大利的世俗权力授予教皇西尔维斯特一世及其继任者。这类文件可以被称为“历史伪造品”,识别它们或许能让我们深入了解产生这些文件的那个社会。但我们也需要考虑现代的伪造品。任何近期发现的重要文献都难免会让人怀疑其是否为伪造,其目的要么是为了牟取暴利,要么是为了蒙蔽当时最杰出的学者。希特勒日记正是如此。1983年,西德一家杂志刊登了据称是元首日记的摘录。尽管这些日记似乎对我们理解第三帝国并无太大贡献,内容大多是官方活动和公告,但它们仍然引起了公众的极大兴趣。包括英国著名历史学家休·特雷弗-罗珀在内的三位学者都宣称这些日记是真品,但不久之后就被证实是伪造的:法医鉴定显示,纸张和墨水都存在问题。都是现代的。后来发现,这位专门伪造纳粹纪念品的造假者,在五年内伪造了62卷“日记” 。9

The first step in evaluating a document is to test its authenticity; this is sometimes known as external criticism. Are the author, the place and the date of writing what they purport to be? These questions are particularly relevant in the case of legal documents such as charters, wills and contracts, on which a great deal could depend in terms of wealth, status and privilege. During the Middle Ages many royal and ecclesiastical charters were forged, either to replace genuine ones that had been lost, or to lay claim to rights and privileges never in fact granted. The Donation of Constantine, an eighth-century document that purported to confer temporal power over Italy on Pope Sylvester I and his successors, was one of the most famous of these forgeries. Documents of this kind might be termed ‘historical forgeries’, and detecting them may tell us a great deal about the society that produced them. But there is also the modern forgery to be considered. Any recently discovered document of great moment is open to the suspicion that it was forged by somebody who intended to make a great deal of money or to run rings round the most eminent scholars of the day. The Hitler dairies did just that. Extracts of what purported to be the Fuhrer’s journal were published in a West German magazine in 1983. Although they appeared to add little of significance to our understanding of the Third Reich, being mostly taken up by lists of official engagements and announcements, the diaries aroused intense public interest. They were pronounced genuine by three scholars, including the eminent British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, only to be exposed shortly afterwards as a forgery: forensic texts revealed that both the paper and the ink were modern. It later transpired that the forger, who specialized in Nazi memorabilia, had produced 62 volumes of the ‘diary’ in five years.9

一旦产生怀疑,历史学家就会提出一系列关键问题。首先是来源问题:这份文件能否追溯到据称出自其制作的机构或个人,还是有人故意栽赃?对于那些凭空出现的重大发现而言,这个问题尤为重要。其次,需要检验文件的内容是否与已知事实相符。根据我们对那个时期的了解,文件中提出的主张或表达的观点是否可信?如果文件内容与能够被其他无可辩驳的原始证据所证实的内容相矛盾,那么就强烈暗示它是伪造的。第三,文件的形式可能提供重要的线索。主要研究手写文件的历史学家需要具备一定的古文字学知识,才能判断字体是否符合特定时期和地点,还需要具备一定的语言学知识,才能评估可疑文本的风格和语言。 (早在1439年,正是语言学检验最终证实了洛伦佐·瓦拉对君士坦丁赠礼的质疑。)更具体地说,官方文件通常遵循特定的内容顺序和一套固定的语言模式,这些都是发布机构的标志。外交正是研究这些形式细节的学科。最后,历史学家可以借助技术专家的帮助来检验文件制作过程中使用的材料。化学测试可以确定羊皮纸、纸张和墨水的年代;文兰地图伪造者的真面目就通过对墨水的微生物分析得以揭露,分析结果显示墨水中含有相当比例的、在1920年之前未知的合成颜料。 10

Once suspicions are aroused, the historian will pose a number of key questions. First, there is the issue of provenance; can the document be traced back to the office or person who is supposed to have produced it, or could it have been planted? In the case of great finds that suddenly materialize from nowhere, this is a particularly significant question. Second, the content of the document needs to be examined for consistency with known facts. Given our knowledge of the period, do the claims made in the document or the sentiments uttered seem at all likely? If the document contradicts what can be substantiated by other primary evidence of unimpeachable authenticity, then forgery is strongly indicated. Third, the form of the document may yield vital clues. The historian who deals mostly in handwritten documents needs to be something of a palaeographer in order to decide whether the script is right for the period and place specified, and something of a philologist to evaluate the style and language of a suspect text. (It was philological tests that clinched Lorenzo Valla’s case against the Donation of Constantine as early as 1439.) More specifically, official documents usually conform to a particular ordering of subject matter and a set of stereotyped verbal formulae, the hallmarks of the institution that issued them. Diplomatics is the name given to the study of these technicalities of form. Lastly, historians can call on the help of technical specialists to examine the materials used in the production of the document. Chemical testing can determine the age of parchment, paper and ink; the hand of the Vinland Map forger was betrayed by microphobe analysis of the ink, which revealed a substantial percentage of an artificial pigment unknown before about 1920.10

古生物学家

palaeographer

研究古代文献的人。

One who studies ancient writings.

语言学家

philologist

研究语言发展的人。

One who studies the development of language.

然而,如果说历史学家们一直在揭露伪造品,或者他们会系统地检验每一份文件的真伪,那就大错特错了。这种方法对于中世纪史的某些分支来说当然适用,因为很多事情可能取决于一份来源不明的契约。但对于大多数历史学家——尤其是现代历史学家——来说,几乎没有可能出现精彩的侦探破案。他们更有可能把时间花在仔细研读一长串信件或备忘录上,记录那些平淡无奇的日常事务,而这些事务几乎与任何人的兴趣都无关。伪造。而对于受到妥善保管的公共记录来说,伪造的可能性微乎其微。

It would be misleading, however, to suggest that historians are constantly uncovering forgeries, or that they methodically test the authenticity of every document that comes their way. This procedure is certainly appropriate to certain branches of medieval history, where much may depend on a single charter of uncertain provenance. But for most historians – and especially the modern historian – there is little prospect of a brilliant detective coup. Their time is more likely to be spent perusing an extended sequence of letters or memoranda, recording humdrum day-today transactions, which would scarcely be in anyone’s interest to forge. And in the case of public records under proper archival care, the possibility of forgery is pretty remote.

对于中世纪研究者而言,这些鉴别技巧还有另一项用途——帮助从现存的众多讹误版本中整理出权威版本。在十五世纪印刷术发明之前,书籍流通的唯一途径是频繁的手抄;中世纪的大部分时间里,修道院和教堂的缮写室是主要的书籍制作中心。抄写过程中难免会出现错误,而且随着每一份抄本被用作另一份抄本的基础,错误也会不断增加。当原件(或称“手稿”)遗失时——这种情况在重要的中世纪文献中屡见不鲜——历史学家往往会发现现有版本之间存在着令人震惊的差异。一些中世纪主要编年史家的作品,正是以这种令人不满的形式流传至今。然而,通过对文本的仔细比较——尤其是它们的书写方式和措辞上的差异——历史学家能够建立现存版本之间的联系,并更接近地重构原文的措辞。准备一份正确的文本是中世纪史学家工作的重要组成部分,这需要掌握古文字学和语文学的知识。如今,由于文本可能分散在各地的图书馆中,可以对其进行拍照并相互比较,这使得这项工作变得更加容易。

For the medievalist some of these skills of detection have another application – to help in preparing an authentic edition out of the several corrupt variants that survive today. Before the invention of printing in the fifteenth century, the only means whereby books could be circulated was by frequent copying by hand; for most of the Middle Ages the scriptoria of the monasteries and cathedrals were the main centres of book production. Inevitably errors crept into the copying, and they increased as each copy was used as the basis of another. Where the original (or ‘autograph’) does not survive, which is frequently the case with important medieval texts, the historian is often confronted by alarming discrepancies among the available versions. This is the unsatisfactory form in which some of the major chroniclers of the medieval period have come down to us. However, close comparison of the texts – especially their scripts and the discrepancies of wording – enables the historian to establish the relationship between the surviving versions and to reconstruct a much closer approximation to the wording of the original. The preparation of a correct text is an important part of a medievalist’s work, requiring a command of palaeography and philology. It is made easier now that the texts, which may be held by widely scattered libraries, can be photographed and examined alongside each other.

写字楼(单字写字楼

scriptoria (sing. scriptorium)

(拉丁语)修道院的书写室,用于书写和抄写文件。

(Latin) The writing rooms of a monastery, where documents were written and copied out.

III

理解文本

Understanding the text

对文件的鉴定,以及在适用情况下清除文本中的讹误,仅仅是初步步骤。第二阶段,通常也是难度更大的阶段,是内部批判,即对文件内容的解读。假设作者、日期和写作地点都与表面所见相符,那么我们该如何理解眼前的文字呢?从某种程度上说,这是一个意义的问题。这不仅仅是翻译外语或古语,尽管对于试图理解中世纪拉丁语缩写形式的初学者来说,翻译可能相当困难。历史学家需要的不仅仅是语言上的流畅性,还需要掌握历史背景,从而揭示……词语的实际指代对象。《末日审判书》就是一个典型的例子,说明了这方面可能出现的难题。它记录了1086年英格兰各郡的土地利用和财富分配情况,当时盎格鲁-撒克逊人(以及丹麦人)的制度尚未被诺曼统治大幅改变;但它是由来自诺曼底的文员编纂的,他们的日常语言是法语,而他们用拉丁语描述所见所闻。难怪书中的内容并非总是清晰明了;例如,术语“ manerium ”(通常写作“manor”)究竟指的是哪种土地保有形式,这一点并不明确。11即使我们只关注用英语写成文献,也无法解决所有问题。因为语言本身就是历史的产物。古老的词汇,尤其是那些技术性较强的词汇,会逐渐被淘汰,而另一些词汇则会获得新的含义。我们必须警惕将现代的含义强加于过去。对于文化内涵更为丰富的文献,例如当代史或政治理论专著,同一文本中可能蕴含着不同层次的意义,这就构成了诠释的一项重要任务。为了理解语言的不稳定性,历史学家受到了文学研究近期发展的影响,尤其是后现代主义对语言理论的关注(参见第七章)。

The authentication of a document and – where applicable – cleansing the text of corruptions are only preliminaries. The second and usually much more demanding stage is internal criticism, that is, the interpretation of the document’s content. Granted that author, date and place of writing are as they seem, what do we make of the words in front of us? At one level this is a question of meaning. This involves more than simply translating from a foreign or archaic language, difficult though that may be for the novice trying to make sense of medieval Latin in abbreviated form. The historian requires not merely linguistic fluency but a command of the historical context that will show what the words actually refer to. Domesday Book is a classic example of the difficulties that can arise here. It is a record of land use and the distribution of wealth in the English shires in 1086, before the institutions of the Anglo-Saxons (and the Danes) had been much altered by Norman rule; but it was compiled by clerks from Normandy whose everyday language was French and who described what they had seen and heard in Latin. Small wonder that it is not always clear; for example, it is not obvious to what form of land tenure the term manerium (usually ‘manor’) refers.11 Nor are our problems solved if we stick to documents written in English. For language itself is a product of history. Old words, especially the more technical ones, pass out of currency, while others acquire a new significance. We have to be on our guard against reading modern meanings into the past. In the case of the more culturally sophisticated sources, such as contemporary histories or treatises on political theory, different levels of meaning may have been embedded in the same text, and this becomes a major task of interpretation. In coming to terms with the instability of language, historians have been influenced by recent developments in literary studies, especially the Postmodernist preoccupation with theories of language (see Chapter 7).

它可靠吗?

Is it reliable?

一旦历史学家深入研究了他们研究时期的史料,掌握了当时特有的措辞和恰当的专业术语,他们往往就不会再过多地关注意义问题。然而,一份文献的内容却会引发一个更为紧迫的问题:它可靠吗?任何史料,在对其历史证据的可靠性做出评估之前,都不能用于历史重建。这个问题超出了古文字学或外交学等辅助技术的范畴。要回答这个问题,需要对历史背景的了解以及对人性的洞察。而这正是历史学家大显身手的地方。

Once historians have become immersed in the sources of their period and have mastered its characteristic turns of phrase and the appropriate technical vocabulary, questions of meaning tend to worry them less often. But the content of a document prompts a further, much more insistent question: is it reliable? No source can be used for historical reconstruction until some estimate of its standing as historical evidence has been made. This question is beyond the scope of any ancillary technique such as palaeography or diplomatics. Answering it calls instead for a knowledge of historical context and an insight into human nature. Here historians come into their own.

辅助

ancillary

子公司,提供帮助。

Subsidiary, giving help to.

如果一份文献以报告的形式记录所见、所闻或所言,我们需要探究作者是否能够忠实地记录。他或她是否身处现场,并且保持着平静专注的心态?如果信息来自二手,它是否仅仅是流言蜚语?中世纪修道院编年史家的可靠性很大程度上取决于……关于他的修道院经常有地位显赫、权势滔天的人物出入。12作者是立即提笔记录,还是在记忆模糊之后才动笔?(阅读日记时,这一点值得注意。)在口头记录中,措辞的精确性至关重要,但在17世纪速记普及之前,没有办法逐字逐句地记录下来。最早的机械录音设备——留声机——直到1877年才被发明出来。要确切地知道一位政治家在一次演讲中说了什么,极其困难:即使他事先写下了演讲稿,也很有可能偏离了原稿;而新闻记者通常只配备铅笔和笔记本,他们的报道难免带有选择性和不准确性,这一点可以从不同报纸对同一场演讲的报道中看出。在议会演讲的情况下,我们可以阅读到可靠的逐字记录,但即使是这样,也只能追溯到1909年《汉萨德议事录》的改革。

Where a document takes the form of a report of what has been seen, heard or said, we need to ask whether the writer was in a position to give a faithful account. Was he or she actually present, and in a tranquil and attentive frame of mind? If the information was learned at second hand, was it anything more than gossip? The reliability of a medieval monastic chronicler largely depended on how often his cloister was frequented by men of rank and power.12 Did the writer put pen to paper immediately, or after the sharpness of his or her memory had blurred? (A point worth bearing in mind when reading a diary.) In reports of oral proceedings, a great deal may turn on the exact form of words used, yet prior to the spread of shorthand in the seventeenth century there was no means of making a verbatim transcript. The earliest mechanical means of recording speech – the phonograph – was not invented until 1877. It is extraordinarily difficult to know exactly what a statesman said in a given speech: if he wrote it out in advance he may well have departed from his text; and press reporters, usually armed with only a pencil and note-pad, are inevitably selective and inaccurate, as can be seen by comparing the reports given by different newspapers of the same speech. In the case of speeches in Parliament a reliable verbatim record can be read, but even this dates back only to the reform of Hansard in 1909.

位于邱园的国家档案馆保存着诺曼征服以来的所有政府档案。这些档案于20世纪70年代从伦敦市中心迁至此处。2003年之前,该档案馆被称为公共档案办公室。(Photographers Direct)

The National Archives at Kew house all government records since the Norman Conquest. They were moved from a central London location in the 1970s. Until 2003 the archives were known as the Public Record Office. (Photographers Direct)

作者受到了哪些因素的影响?

What influenced the author?

然而,影响史料可靠性的最主要因素是作者的意图和偏见。那些旨在流传后世、并以此作为对特定时期总体印象的叙述尤其值得怀疑。自传在这方面容易出现的扭曲显而易见,无需赘述。中世纪的编年史家往往在君主之间、教会与国家之间持有极端的党派立场:威尔士的杰拉尔德对亨利二世日益增长的反感源于国王屡次否决他晋升主教的任命;马修·帕里斯对亨利三世与英国男爵之间争端的处理,则因其几乎认同所有形式的集体特权在与国王或教皇交往中的地位而带有偏见。 13编年史家也常常受到当时受过教育的人们所特有的偏见的影响——例如对异端的厌恶,或对律师和放贷者的反感。当时几乎所有识字的人都持有受文化束缚的假设和刻板印象,因此需要格外谨慎地评估。对于研究前文字社会(例如19世纪热带非洲社会)的历史学家而言,欧洲旅行者的当代记述是重要的资料来源,但几乎所有这些记述都带有种族主义和耸人听闻的色彩:司法处决(例如在阿散蒂地区)被描述为“活人祭祀”,一夫多妻制被描绘成性放纵的许可证。文学创作在这方面也并非例外。小说家、剧作家和诗人与其他人一样,也存在着各种偏见,因此在引用他们的作品作为历史证据时,必须考虑到这些偏见。 E·M·福斯特的《印度之行》(1924)除其他方面外,对英国在印度的统治进行了精彩而令人信服且非常不讨喜的刻画,但肯定要考虑到福斯特本人与控制印度行政部门的那种一本正经的公学出身的人之间的疏离感。

What most affects the reliability of a source, however, is the intention and prejudices of the writer. Narratives intended for posterity, on which a general impression of the period tends to be based, are particularly suspect. The distortions to which autobiography is subject in this respect are too obvious for comment. Medieval chroniclers were often extremely partisan as between one ruler and another, or between Church and state: Gerald of Wales’s increasing antipathy towards Henry II was due to the king’s repeated veto on his promotion to the episcopate; Matthew Paris’s treatment of the disputes between Henry III and the English barons was slanted by his identification with virtually all forms of corporate privilege in their dealings with king or pope.13 Chroniclers were often influenced too by the prejudices characteristic of educated people of their time – a revulsion against heresy, or a distaste for lawyers and money-lenders. Culture-bound assumptions and stereotypes shared by virtually all literate people of the day call for particularly careful appraisal. For the historian of pre-literate societies, such as those of tropical Africa in the nineteenth century, the contemporary accounts of European travellers are a source of major importance, but nearly all of them were coloured by racism and sensationalism: judicial execution (as in Ashanti) appeared as ‘human sacrifice’, and polygamy was presented as a licence for sexual excess. Nor does creative literature have a special dispensation in this respect. Novelists, playwrights and poets have as many prejudices as anyone else, and these have to be allowed for when citing their work as historical evidence. E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924) is, among other things, a marvellously convincing and very unflattering portrayal of the British Raj at district level, but some account must surely be taken of Forster’s own alienation from the kind of stiff-upper-lip public school man who controlled the administration in India.

主教

episcopate

主教的职称。

The rank of bishop.

亨利三世(1207–72 年)

Henry III (1207–72)

亨利三世国王从他的父亲约翰国王那里继承了与英国贵族之间的问题。反对亨利的势力由西蒙·德·蒙福特和坎特伯雷大主教斯蒂芬·兰顿领导,最终导致1265年英国历史上最早的议会召开。

King Henry III inherited problems with the English barons from his father, King John. Opposition to Henry was led by Simon de Montfort and Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and led eventually to the summoning in 1265 of the earliest Parliament in English history.

企业特权

corporate privileges

特定群体的特权,尤其是贵族阶层的特权。

The privileges of particular groups, especially the barons.

异端

heresy

异端是指偏离正统宗教信仰,这与信奉完全不同宗教的异教徒(不信者)截然不同。在中世纪教会法庭上,异端罪可判处死刑。

Deviation from orthodox religious belief, as opposed to infidels (the unfaithful), who hold to a different religious belief entirely. Heresy was punishable by death in medieval Church courts.

阿散蒂

Ashanti

阿散蒂王国是位于今加纳境内的一个西非王国。在19世纪末英国人到来之前,它一直是该地区的主要强国。英国于1901年吞并了阿散蒂王国。

A West African kingdom in modern-day Ghana. It was a major power in the region until the arrival of the British in the late nineteenth century. Britain annexed the Ashanti kingdom in 1901.

一夫多妻制

polygamy

允许一个男人娶多个妻子的制度。虽然旧约圣经中对此有明确记载,但主流基督教教会一直对此予以严厉谴责。

The system whereby one man is allowed more than one wife. Although clearly in evidence in the Old Testament, it has always been severely condemned by the mainstream Christian churches.

英国统治

British Raj

英国在印度的帝国统治,从十八世纪持续到1947年。

British imperial rule in India, lasting from the eighteenth century until 1947.

坚忍不拔

stiff-upper-lip

英国公立学校传统上灌输一种坚忍和正式的态度,目的是教导男孩隐藏自己的情绪,尤其是在面对痛苦或逆境时。

The attitude of stoicism and formality which was traditionally inculcated at British public shools in order to teach boys to hide their emotions, especially in the face of pain or adversity.

另一方面,记录资料——即“无意识的见证者”(见第93页)——的吸引力在于,历史学家可以通过它们观察或推断每日事件的先后顺序,而无需受叙述者主观目的的影响。但这仅仅是为了消除一种较为明显的扭曲。因为无论资料来源多么自然或权威,极少有写作形式仅仅出于传达未经粉饰的真相的愿望。即使是未经修饰而写的日记也是如此。考虑到发表的可能性,作者或许是在提升自尊心并为自己的动机寻找合理化的理由。一份看似对所见、所闻或所言进行客观记录的文件,很可能带有偏见——可能是无意识的,是根深蒂固的偏见的体现;也可能是故意的,出于取悦或影响收信人的愿望。大使在回国的电报中,可能会夸大自身的积极性和主动性;他们也可能为了迎合上级的政策和预设,而对所效力的政府进行审查。如今的历史学家对维多利亚时代那些伟大“社会问题”调查者的客观性主张持怀疑态度:他们认识到,证据的选择往往被扭曲,以迎合中产阶级对穷人的刻板印象,并推广他们偏爱的“疗法”。

The attraction of record sources – of ‘witnesses in spite of themselves’ (see p. 93) – on the other hand, is that through them the historian can observe or infer the sequence of day-to-day events, free from the controlling purpose of a narrator. But this is merely to eliminate one of the more obvious kinds of distortion. For however spontaneous or authoritative the source, very few forms of writing arise solely from a desire to convey the unvarnished truth. Even in the case of a diary composed without thought of publication, the writer may be bolstering his or her self-esteem and rationalizing motives. A document that appears to be a straightforward report of something seen, heard or said may well be slanted – either unconsciously, as an expression of deep-seated prejudice, or deliberately, from a wish to please or influence the recipient. Ambassadors in their dispatches home may convey a greater impression of bustle and initiative on their own part than is actually the case; and they may censor their impressions of the government to which they are accredited in order to fit them to the policies and preconceptions of their superiors. Historians today are much more sceptical than they used to be about the claims to objectivity of the great Victorian enquirers into the ‘social problem’: they recognize that the selection of evidence was often distorted to fit middle-class stereotypes about the poor and to promote the implementation of pet remedies.

认证

accredited

大使由本国政府派遣,并被派驻到另一国政府任职。

Ambassadors are sent by the government of their own country and accredited – attached – to the government of another.

偏见的用途

The uses of bias

然而,一旦发现偏见,相关文件并非必须弃之不用。偏见本身很可能具有历史意义。对于公众人物而言,偏见可能导致其对某些人或情况的持续误读,进而对政策造成灾难性影响。在广泛流传的出版物中,偏见或许能够解释公众舆论的重要转变。十九世纪皇家委员会的报告就是一个典型的例子。报纸也提供了其他例证:1915-1916年间,许多反对阿斯奎斯政府的英国日报所刊登的战事报道虽然不能可靠地反映前线情况,但无疑有助于解释首相在国内声望为何急剧下降。 14 自传因其回忆错误和为特定事件辩护而臭名昭著。但其最大的价值往往恰恰在于其主观性,因为作者对自己生活模式的构建既是文化建构,也是个人建构,它不仅反映了作者写作时的心态,也反映了其生活本身的心态。即使是最不完美的史料,也能帮助我们重构过去。

Once bias has been detected, however, the offending document need not be consigned to the scrap-heap. The bias itself is likely to be historically significant. In the case of a public figure it may account for a consistent misreading of certain people or situations, with disastrous effects on policy. In published documents with a wide circulation, bias may explain an important shift in public opinion. The reports of nineteenth-century Royal Commissions are a case in point. Newspapers provide other examples: the war reports of the many British dailies that were opposed to Asquith’s government in 1915–16 are not a reliable guide to what was happening on the front, but they certainly help to explain why the Prime Minister’s reputation at home declined so severely.14 Autobiographies are notorious for their errors of recall and their special pleading. But in their very subjectivity often lies their greatest value, since the pattern that the writer makes of his or her own life is a cultural as much as a personal construct, and it also illuminates the frame of mind in which not only the book was written but the life itself was led. Even the most tainted sources can assist in the reconstruction of the past.

结合语境阅读资料

Reading sources in their context

如前所述,历史证据的评估似乎与法庭上的交叉询问证人颇为相似:两者的目的都在于检验证词的可靠性。然而,如果认为所有原始资料的评估都遵循法庭的模式,那就具有误导性了。公共记录的研究通常从两个角度展开。首先,记录的生成机构是如何随着时间推移而演变的?它在政治体系中扮演着怎样的角色?其次,具体的政策是如何制定和执行的?在这种背景下,可靠性几乎不再是问题,因为记录的研究并非将其视为报告(即对“外部”事件的证词),而是将其视为某个过程(无论是行政、司法还是政策制定)的组成部分,而该过程本身就是研究的对象。记录既是机构的产物,也是个人的产物,因此需要在机构的背景下进行考察——包括其既得利益、行政惯例和记录保存程序;任何与法律或公共财政相关的记录都需要特别高深的专业知识。如果脱离其所属的系列进行考察,早已消失的公共机构的档案几乎肯定会被误解。 15为了充分理解这些档案的意义,历史学家必须尽可能按照其原始分组进行研究(国家档案馆总体上遵循这一原则),而不是按照某些爱整洁的档案管理员的重新整理方式进行研究。理想情况下,应该对它们进行整体研究。这意味着要同时考察来往信函。在现代复制技术出现之前,复制外发信件需要耗费大量精力,因此许多重要的馆藏中完全缺少这些信件;这就很难确定政策是如何执行的,或者哪些压力促成了这些政策的产生。英国政府直到17世纪末才开始着手解决这个问题。

As described so far, the evaluation of historical evidence may not seem to be unlike the cross-examination of witnesses in a court of law: in both cases the point is to test the reliability of the testimony. But the court-room analogy is misleading if it suggests that primary sources are always evaluated in this way. Public records have most often been studied from one of two standpoints. First, how did the institution that generated the records evolve over time, and what was its function in the body politic? And second, how were specific policies formulated and executed? In this context reliability is hardly the issue, for the records are studied not as reports (i.e. testimonies of events ‘out there’), but as parts of a process (be it administrative, judicial or policy-making) which is itself the subject of enquiry. They are as much the creation of an institution as an individual, and therefore need to be examined in the context of that institution – its vested interests, its administrative routine, and its record-keeping procedures; any records to do with law or public finance call for technical knowledge of a particularly demanding kind. Considered apart from the series to which they belong, the records of long-vanished public institutions are almost certain to be misinterpreted.15 To understand the full significance of these records the historian must if possible study them in their original groupings (a principle on the whole respected in the National Archives) rather than in the rearrangement of some tidy-minded archivist. And ideally they should be studied in their entirety. That means examining together incoming and outgoing correspondence. Before modern methods of reproduction, considerable effort was required to make copies of outgoing letters, and the result is that in many important collections they are completely absent; it is therefore difficult to be sure how policies were executed, or what pressures contributed to their genesis. Governments in England did not get on top of this problem until the late seventeenth century.

有时,将特定史料视为独立的历史事件而非见证者,是合理的。例如,对于像《末日审判书》这样的重要公共文献,我们需要了解它的由来和影响——这可以通过文本分析、同一来源的相关文献、当时的评论等方式来实现。 16而像《第二次改革法案》(1867年)或《贝尔福宣言》这样的近代文献,则需要更深入地研究。《巴勒斯坦的未来》(1917)一书也值得我们采用类似的研究方法。事实上,这正是思想史学家如今所采用的研究方法。传统上,他们研究的对象是通过追溯历代伟大理论家的思想脉络,来揭示诸如议会主权或个人自由等关键概念的渊源。然而,这种方法却造成了一种不幸的后果:它暗示着这些伟大的著作是在探讨“我们”的问题,从而掩盖了这些文献本身的当代意义。但历史学家的首要任务是将这些作品视为当时的任何其他文献,并尽可能地将其置于其特定的思想和社会语境中进行解读。这意味着既要关注作品所属的特定体裁——或话语——也要关注它与当时读者所熟悉的其他体裁之间的关系。昆汀·斯金纳和J.G.A.波科克等学者指出,同时代人对《利维坦》(1651年)的理解几乎肯定与托马斯·霍布斯本人想要表达的意思有所不同。 17在理解一位古代思想家的原创思想时,语境至少与文本本身同等重要。

Sometimes it makes sense to treat a specific source not as a witness, but as a historical event in its own right. In the case of a major public document like Domesday Book, we need to understand how it came into being and what impact it had – by means of textual analysis, related documents from the same source, contemporary comment and so on.16 More recent documents like the Second Reform Act (1867) or the Balfour Declaration on the future of Palestine (1917) invite a comparable approach. This is in effect the procedure now adopted by historians of ideas. Traditionally their subject was studied to reveal the pedigree of key concepts, such as parliamentary sovereignty or the freedom of the individual, through a canon of great theorists down the ages. This had the unfortunate effect of implying that the great texts were addressing ‘our’ issues, and thus obscured the contemporary significance of the sources themselves. But the first task of the historian is to treat these works like any other document of the time and to read them, as far as possible, in the specific intellectual and social contexts in which they were written. This means having regard to both the specific genre – or discourse – to which the work belonged, and its relation to other genres with which readers of the time would have been familiar. Scholars such as Quentin Skinner and J.G.A. Pocock have pointed out that what contemporaries made of, say, Leviathan (1651) almost certainly differed from what Thomas Hobbes himself meant to convey.17 Context is at least as important as text in coming to terms with an original thinker in the past.

记录中的空白

Gaps in the record

如果历史学家想要警惕现存记录中一个特别严重的扭曲原因——蓄意销毁证据——那么了解行政和档案程序至关重要。虽然在官方记录中植入伪造文件会带来重大困难,但压制一份令人尴尬或有罪的文件却相对容易。例如,在国家档案中,詹姆斯二世统治时期几乎所有与大法官杰弗里斯往来的信件都已遗失。由于杰弗里斯本人在1689年革命后死于伦敦塔,人们推测这些文件是被某个在关键时刻倒戈的人所取走的,此人可以通过掩盖自己与这位臭名昭著的“血腥巡回审判”法官的关系来获利。18如今在英国,大部分政府档案的集中管理——这项在十九世纪中期实现的制度——有效地遏制了此类篡改行为,但负责官员仍然可以确保敏感文件永远不会离开其所属部门。由于完全保存显然不切实际,因此存在一套公认的销毁程序。那些被认为不具历史价值的临时性材料很容易被滥用。例如,一些与20世纪40年代末巴勒斯坦有关的殖民地事务部档案已被销毁,据推测是为了掩盖英国在托管时期动荡的最后阶段的行动;与1956年苏伊士运河危机相关的关键英国文件也可能被立即销毁或移除。毫无疑问,存在一些未经授权的审查案例,这些案例难以被发现,但熟悉相关部门行政程序的历史学家上当受骗的可能性要小得多。

A knowledge of administrative and archival procedures is also vital if the historian is to be alert to one particularly serious cause of distortion in the surviving record – the deliberate removal of evidence. While the planting of a forgery in the official record presents major difficulties, it may be a comparatively easy matter to suppress an embarrassing or incriminating document. In the State Papers, for example, almost all the letters to and from Lord Chancellor Jeffreys for the reign of James II are missing. Since Jeffreys himself died in the Tower in 1689 after the Revolution, it has been surmised that the papers were removed by some person who had changed sides at the critical moment and stood to gain by suppressing his connection with the infamous judge of the ‘Bloody Assizes’.18 In Britain today the centralization of most government record-keeping at the National Archives – achieved in the mid-nineteenth century – is an effective check on this kind of tampering, but it is still possible for the responsible official to ensure that a sensitive document never leaves the department in which it was produced. Since total preservation is manifestly impracticable, there is a recognized procedure for destroying ephemeral material judged to be of no historical interest, and this is open to abuse.19 For example, a number of Colonial Office files relating to Palestine in the late 1940s have been destroyed, presumably in order to cast a veil over British actions during the turbulent last phase of the mandate administration; it is also likely that crucial British documents relating to the Suez Crisis of 1956 were destroyed or removed immediately.20 No doubt there have been instances of unauthorized censorship that are proof against detection, but the historian familiar with the administrative procedures of the department in question is a great deal less likely to be duped.

杰弗里斯大法官(1648–89)

Lord Chancellor Jeffreys (1648–89)

乔治·杰弗里斯是查理二世和詹姆斯二世统治时期一位热情而极不受欢迎的法官。他因在西南部地区举行的“血腥巡回审判”而臭名昭著,当时他判处 300 人死刑,这些人参与了 1685 年蒙茅斯公爵发动的失败叛乱。

George Jeffreys was a zealous and deeply unpopular judge under Charles II and James II. He became notorious for the ‘Bloody Assizes’ in the West Country, when he sentenced 300 people to death for taking part in the Duke of Monmouth’s failed rebellion of 1685.

官方公布的记录

Officially published records

有些史料已被刻意从历史学家的视野中抹去,而另一些则被推到了聚光灯下。在近代史的多个领域,人们可以查阅一些成书后不久出版的史料集。然而,重要的是,不应仅仅因为这些史料集易于获取就赋予其特殊的地位。它们几乎总是经过筛选,其出版目的通常是为了实现某种实际目标,通常是短期的政治目的。著名的《国家审判录》系列长期以来被认为是自16世纪以来英国一些重大刑事诉讼的可靠记录。但该系列的前四卷是1719年由一群辉格党宣传者推广的;因此,作为斯图亚特王朝时期重大政治审判的史料,其可靠性显然值得怀疑。21在十九世纪,政治人物的信件出版——通常规模庞大——往往被其家人和追随者视为一种恰当的纪念方式,但通常都存在审查机制,以压制那些不太光彩的事件,从而保护或提升在世人物的声誉。同一时期的各国政府将出版部分外交信件(例如英国的蓝皮书)视为争取公众对其政策支持的合法手段;一些“公报”正是为此目的而撰写的。在所有这些情况下,历史学家显然更倾向于查阅原始文献。如果无法获得原始文献,则必须仔细审查已出版的版本,并尽可能从其他来源了解其编纂的背景。

While some records have been carefully removed from the historian’s reach, others have been pushed into the limelight. In several fields of modern history, collections of records published soon after the time of writing can be consulted. It is important that these collections should not be accorded special weight just because they are so accessible. They nearly always represent a selection, whose publication was intended to further some practical end, usually of a short-term political nature. The well-known series of State Trials was for a long time accepted as a reliable record of some of the major English criminal proceedings since the sixteenth century. But the first four volumes were promoted in 1719 by a group of propagandists in the Whig cause; as a source for the great political trials of the Stuart period they are therefore distinctly suspect.21 During the nineteenth century the publication – often on a massive scale – of a politician’s correspondence was often considered by his family and followers to be a fitting memorial, but there was usually an element of censorship so that the less savoury episodes were suppressed and the reputation of living persons protected or enhanced. Governments of the same period regarded the publication of select diplomatic correspondence (for example in the British Blue Books) as a legitimate means of building up public support for their policies; some of the ‘dispatches’ were composed for this very purpose. In all these cases the historian will obviously prefer to go to the originals. If these are not available, the published versions must be scrutinized carefully, and as much as possible must be found out from other sources about the circumstances in which they were compiled.

第四

IV

权衡各种信息来源

Weighing sources against each other

由此可见,历史研究并非仅仅是找到权威资料并加以利用,因为大多数资料在某种程度上都存在不准确、不完整或带有偏见和私利的成分。正确的做法是尽可能从各种来源收集证据——最好是所有与当前问题相关的来源。这样一来,特定资料的不准确和歪曲之处就更有可能被揭示出来,历史学家的推论也能得到证实。每种类型的资料都有其自身的优势和劣势;将它们结合起来,相互比较,至少有可能揭示出真相——或者非常接近真相的信息。

It will be clear, then, that historical research is not a matter of identifying the authoritative source and then exploiting it for all it is worth, for the majority of sources are in some way inaccurate, incomplete or tainted by prejudice and self-interest. The procedure is rather to amass as many pieces of evidence as possible from a wide range of sources – preferably from all the sources that have a bearing on the problem in hand. In this way the inaccuracies and distortions of particular sources are more likely to be revealed, and the inferences drawn by the historian can be corroborated. Each type of source possesses certain strengths and weaknesses; considered together, and compared one against the other, there is at least a chance that they will reveal the true facts – or something very close to them.

正因如此,掌握多种史料是历史学研究的标志之一——这是一项要求极高且并非人人都能达到的严苛标准。传记之所以常被学院派历史学家轻视,原因之一在于许多传记作者只研究传主留下的私人文件,而没有将其与同事、熟人的文稿以及(在相关情况下)当时的公共记录进行比对。兰克本人也曾因在其一些关于十六世纪的著作中过度依赖威尼斯大使的公文而受到批评。尽管这些大使大多观察敏锐、尽职尽责,但他们看待问题时很大程度上是从统治精英的角度出发的。诚然,他们是外国人,不受当地政治忠诚的束缚,但却缺乏对所驻在国文化的真正理解。22需要来自“内部人士”和“外部人士”的第一手证据是历史研究的重要指导原则,具有广泛的影响。20世纪60年代以前西方非洲史学者的不足之处可以概括为:他们依赖欧洲探险家、传教士和行政官员的证词,而没有认真探寻非洲本土史料。23卡罗尔·史密斯-罗森伯格回忆说,当她开始研究19世纪美国女性史时,她发现自己将女性描绘成受害者,因为她一直局限于男性为女性撰写或关于女性的那些已被翻阅无数次的教育和神学著作;当她发现……时,她的视角发生了转变。普通女性的书信和日记记录了“局内人”的积极意识。24

This is why mastery of a variety of sources is one of the hallmarks of historical scholarship – an exacting one which is by no means always attained. One of the reasons why biography is often disparaged by academic historians is that too many biographers have studied only the private papers left by their subject, instead of weighing these against the papers of colleagues and acquaintances and (where relevant) the public records for the period. Ranke himself has been criticized for relying too heavily on the dispatches of the Venetian ambassadors in some of his writings on the sixteenth century. Observant and conscientious as most of them were, the ambassadors saw matters very much from the point of view of the governing elite. They were also foreigners, free from local political loyalties, it is true, but lacking a real feel for the culture of the country to which they were accredited.22 The need for primary evidence from ‘insiders’ as well as ‘outsiders’ is an important guideline for historical research, with wide ramifications. The failings of Western writers on African history before the 1960s could be summed up by saying that they relied on the testimony of the European explorer, missionary and administrator, without seriously seeking out African sources.23 Carroll Smith-Rosenberg recalls that when she started out in nineteenth-century American women’s history, she found herself portraying women as victims because she had stuck to the well-thumbed educational and theological works that men wrote for and about women; her angle of vision was transformed when she uncovered the letters and diaries of ordinary women which documented the active consciousness of the ‘insider’.24

如今,人们对历史学家使用史料的范围提出了更高的要求。例如,在国际关系史研究中,一条黄金法则是:必须研究外交对话双方的言论,才能确定对话的主题以及哪一方的论点更有效地表达出来;正因如此,戈尔巴乔夫时代之前的苏联档案难以获取,令西方历史学家在研究二战起源时倍感沮丧。对于研究20世纪英国政府政策的历史学家而言,他们或许会倾向于将研究范围局限于公共档案,因为这些档案数量庞大,而且随着“三十年规则”的实施,每年都有更多档案首次公开,其数量还在不断增加(见第113页)。但这种方法不利于做出平衡的解读。公共档案往往过分强调行政方面的考量(这反映了撰写这些档案的公务员的主要利益所在),而对部长们所面临的政治压力却鲜有提及。因此,将搜索范围扩大到报刊和议会记录、私人信件和日记、政治回忆录,以及——对于近代史而言——第一手口述证据,就显得尤为重要。25

Tough standards now tend to be expected of historians regarding the range of sources they use. In the history of international relations, for example, it is a golden rule that both sides of a diplomatic conversation must be studied before one can be certain what the subject of the conversation was and which side put its case more effectively; this is why the inaccessibility of the Soviet archives prior to the Gorbachev era was so frustrating for Western historians of the origins of the Second World War. For historians of government policy in twentieth-century Britain, the temptation may be to confine research to the public records, because these survive in such profusion, and their number is increased every year as more records become available for the first time under the thirty-year rule (see p. 113). But this method is hardly conducive to a balanced interpretation. The public records tend to give too much prominence to administrative considerations (thus reflecting the principal interest of the civil servants who wrote most of them) and to reveal much less about the political pressures to which ministers responded; hence the importance of extending the search to the press and Hansard, private letters and diaries, political memoirs and – for recent history – to first-hand oral evidence.25

戈尔巴乔夫时代

Gorbachev era

在苏联共产主义统治时期,查阅国家档案馆几乎是不可能的。在米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫执政期间,作为其“公开性”(glasnost)政策的一部分,档案馆向学者开放。

Under communist rule access to state archives in the Soviet Union was virtually impossible. Under Mikhail Gorbachev archives were opened to scholars as part of his policy of glasnost (openness).

记录中隐藏的痕迹

Hidden traces in the records

刚才讨论的例子——国际关系和政府政策——都是拥有丰富原始资料的领域。在这些领域,都有大量公开保存的文献资料,以及众多辅助资料来佐证和补充证据。然而,许多历史主题的资料却远不及此,要么是因为遗存下来的证据寥寥无几,要么是因为我们今天感兴趣的内容在当时并不为人所关注,因此没有被记录下来。如果历史学家想要超越史料创作者的直接关注点,就必须学会更间接地解读史料。首先,许多史料之所以具有价值,是因为其中包含着作者几乎未曾意识到自己正在记录的信息,而这些信息与他们作证的目的并无直接关联。这是因为人们会在无意识中通过文字传递有关他们的态度、假设和生活方式的线索。对历史学家而言,某些文献可能极具价值。因此,一份文献的价值取决于对其提出的问题——有时甚至是作者或当时的人们从未想到的问题。当然,这正是为什么以明确的问题为起点进行研究,而不是仅仅沿着文献的线索摸索,会如此富有成效的原因之一:它可能会揭示出原本被认为不存在的证据。从这个角度来看,“来源”一词或许有些不恰当:如果按字面意思理解,一个“来源”只能为单一的知识“流”提供证据。甚至有人建议完全放弃“来源”一词,而改用“痕迹”或“踪迹”。 26

The examples just discussed – international relations and government policy – are topics for which there exists primary source material in abundance. In each case there is a well-defined body of documents in public custody, with numerous ancillary sources to corroborate and amplify the evidence. But there are many historical topics that are much less well served, either because little evidence has survived or because what interests us today did not interest contemporaries and was therefore not recorded. If historians are to go beyond the immediate concerns of those who created their sources, they have to learn how to interpret the sources more obliquely. First, many sources are valued for information that the writers were scarcely aware they were setting down and which was incidental to the purpose of their testimony. This is because people unconsciously convey on paper clues about their attitudes, assumptions and manner of life which may be intensely interesting to historians. A given document may therefore be useful in a variety of ways, depending on the questions asked of it – sometimes questions that would never have occurred to the writer or to people of the time. This, of course, is one reason why beginning research with clearly defined questions rather than simply going where the documents lead can be so rewarding: it may reveal evidence where none was thought to exist. From this point of view, the word ‘source’ is perhaps somewhat inapposite: if the metaphor is interpreted literally, a ‘source’ can contribute evidence to only one ‘stream’ of knowledge. It has even been suggested that the term should be abandoned altogether in favour of ‘trace’ or ‘track’.26

无意中的证据

Unwitting evidence

这种善于将证据转化为新用途的能力是近期历史研究方法的一大特色。那些超越主流政治史的既有研究领域,转向社会史和文化史等领域的历史学家,最充分地展现了这种能力,因为这些领域的原始资料更为匮乏。以宗教改革时期英国普通民众的宗教信仰为例。尽管精英阶层教义信仰的转变记录相对完整,但普通民众的宗教信仰却鲜有记载。然而,玛格丽特·斯普福德在其对剑桥郡三个村庄的研究中,巧妙地利用遗嘱这一看似不太可能的证据,揭示了宗教信仰的变迁。每份遗嘱都以奉献条款开头,这使得人们可以推断立遗嘱人或遗嘱抄写员的教义偏好。通过对这些条款的研究,斯普福德指出,到十七世纪初,对基督代祷的个人信仰——新教信仰的标志——已在当地民众中深入人心。27当然,立遗嘱人的本意并非要证明他们的宗教信仰;他们只是希望确保自己的财产能够按照他们的意愿处置。但是,如果历史学家能够敏锐地捕捉到史料无意间所作的证词,他们就能超越史料创作者的意图,做出更深入的解读。

This flair for turning evidence to new uses is one of the distinctive contributions of recent historical method. It has been most fully displayed by historians who have moved beyond the well-lit paths of mainstream political history to fields such as social and cultural history, for which explicit source material is more difficult to come by. A case in point is the religious beliefs of ordinary people in Reformation England. Although the switches of doctrinal allegiance among the elite are relatively well recorded, evidence is very sparse for the rest of the population. But Margaret Spufford in her study of three Cambridgeshire villages has used the unlikely evidence of wills to show how religious affiliation changed. Every will began with a dedicatory clause, which allows some inference to be drawn concerning the doctrinal preference of the testator or the scribe. From a study of these clauses, Spufford shows how by the early seventeenth century personal faith in the mediation of Christ – the hallmark of Protestant belief – had made deep inroads among the local people.27 It was, of course, no part of the testators’ intentions to furnish evidence of their religious beliefs; they were concerned only to ensure that their worldly goods were disposed of in accordance with their wishes. But historians alert to the unwitting testimony of the sources can go beyond the intentions of those who created them.

奉献条款

dedicatory clause

遗嘱的开头部分,将立遗嘱人的灵魂托付给全能的上帝。

The opening section of a will, which dedicates the testator’s soul to the care of Almighty God.

基督的调解

mediation of Christ

天主教神学认为,信徒需要教会的介入才能在死后进入天堂。而新教徒则认为,耶稣基督在十字架上的牺牲提供了神与人之间所需的一切中介,信徒只需相信基督就能进入天堂。

Catholic theology teaches that the believer needs the agency of the Church in order to go to heaven after death. Protestants believe that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross provides all the mediation between God and mankind that is needed, and that a believer need only believe in Christ in order to enter into heaven.

目前,法律史在历史学家中引起的关注相对较少,但法庭记录可能是我们了解中世纪和近代早期社会史最重要的单一史料来源,因为当时绝大多数人口都生活在法庭记录中。由于当地文盲率高,因此无法留下任何记录。正因如此,埃马纽埃尔·勒鲁瓦·拉杜里才能撰写出他的蒙塔尤微型史(见上文第82页)。在那里进行宗教裁判的主教原本打算根除卡特里派异端。但是,他就像“一个执着的梅格雷探长28,对证人的细致记录最终却成就了一部详尽而又充满情色意味的乡村生活记录。正如勒鲁瓦·拉杜里所说,卡特里派异端在蒙塔尤的高度集中“为研究卡特里派本身——那并非我的研究对象——而是乡村居民的精神世界提供了契机” 29 。当历史学家以这种方式与文献的当代意义保持距离时,其可靠性可能就变得无关紧要了:真正重要的是那些偶然的细节。在十八世纪的法国,未婚怀孕的妇女常常会向地方法官作证,试图将责任推卸给诱奸者,以挽回一些名誉。理查德·科布也参与其中。他对1790年至1792年间在里昂作出的54份此类陈述进行了研究,正如他所指出的,与这些陈述所揭示的城市贫民的性道德、他们的工作和休闲状况以及当时的大众道德相比,引诱者的身份只是一个微不足道的问题。30正是这类研究充分展现了马克·布洛赫对其历史学家同行提出的“研究证人证词,即使他们自己并不情愿”(见第93页)的告诫的效力。

Legal history arouses relatively little interest among historians at present, but court records are probably the single most important source we have for the social history of the medieval and early modern periods, when the vast majority of the population was illiterate and therefore generated no records of its own. This was how Emmauel Le Roy Ladurie was able to write his micro-history of Montaillou (see above, p. 82). The bishop who carried out the Inquisition there intended to root out the Cathar heresy. But, as ‘a sort of compulsive Maigret’,28 his meticulous recording of witnesses resulted in a detailed and salacious record of village life. As Le Roy Ladurie puts it, the high concentration of Cathar heretics in Montaillou ‘provides an opportunity for the study not of Catharism itself – that is not my subject – but of the mental outlook of the country people’.29 When historians distance themselves from the contemporary significance of a document in this way, its reliability may be of only marginal significance: what counts is the incidental detail. In eighteenth-century France it was the practice for unmarried pregnant women to make statements to the magistrate in order to pin responsibility on their seducers and salvage something of their reputations. Richard Cobb carried out a study of fifty-four such statements made at Lyon in 1790–2, and as he points out, the identity of the seducers is a trivial issue compared with the light that is shed on the sexual mores of the urban poor, their conditions of work and leisure, and the popular morality of the day.30 It is studies such as these that demonstrate the full force of Marc Bloch’s injunction to his fellow historians to study ‘the evidence of witnesses in spite of themselves’ (see p. 93).

宗教裁判所

Inquisition

正式名称为圣职部,是天主教会的法律部门,负责调查异端指控。

Officially known as the Holy Office, this was the Catholic Church’s legal department charged with investigating accusations of heresy.

梅格雷

Maigret

比利时犯罪小说家乔治·西默农(1903-1989)笔下细致入微的虚构侦探。

The painstaking fictional detective created by the Belgian crime writer Georges Simenon (1903–89).

卡特里派

Cathar

十三世纪,一种宗教异端在法国西南部迅速传播。它也被称为阿尔比派,因其中心位于阿尔比镇而得名。该派认为,既然人类真正的家园在天堂,那么世界必然是邪恶的。教皇和法国国王都将其视为重大的教义和政治威胁,最终被宗教裁判所和一场被称为阿尔比十字军东征的残酷军事行动镇压。

A form of religious heresy that spread rapidly in south-western France in the thirteenth century. It is also known as Albigensianism, from its centre in the town of Albi. It held that, since humans’ true home is in heaven, the world must be evil. It was seen as a major doctrinal and political threat both by the papacy and by the kings of France, and was finally crushed by the Inquisition and by a ruthless military campaign known as the Albigensian Crusade.

十三世纪,卡特里派异端在法国南部兴起,教会派遣宗教裁判所予以镇压。几个世纪后,法国历史学家埃马纽埃尔·勒鲁瓦·拉杜里利用宗教裁判官的记录,描绘出蒙塔尤山村居民生活的细致入微的图景。勒鲁瓦·拉杜里解读这些记录的出发点与最初编纂者截然不同。(保罗·肖克罗斯)

When the Cathar heresy took hold in southern France in the thirteenth century the Church sent the Inquisition to stamp it out. Centuries later the French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie used the Inquisitors’ records to build up a remarkably detailed picture of the intimate lives of the inhabitants of the little mountain village of Montaillou. Le Roy Ladurie was reading the records with very different priorities from those of the men who originally compiled them. (Paul Shawcross)

V

V

统计证据分析

The analysis of statistical evidence

迄今为止,我们尚未提及定量数据。难道数字的精确性不能使我们摆脱文本资料带来的诸多分析难题吗?有人认为,定量方法的应用会取代历史学家的传统技能,并催生一种全新的学者类型。事实并非如此。统计学知识只有在遵循历史研究方法的常规检验标准时才能发挥作用。鉴于数字在我们这个重视数字的社会中所具有的特殊权威性,对定量数据进行可靠性检验的义务至少与对文学资料的检验同等重要。而且,一旦数据得到验证,对其进行解释并将其应用于解决具体历史问题,所需的判断力和洞察力与其他任何类型的证据一样重要。

Nothing has been said until now about quantitative data. Does the precision of numbers not rescue us from the manifold problems of analysis raised by textual sources? It is sometimes imagined that the application of quantitative methods displaces the traditional skills of the historian and calls for an entirely new breed of scholar. Nothing could be further from the truth. Statistical know-how can only be effective if it is subject to the normal controls of historical method. Given the special authority that figures carry in our numerate society, the obligation to subject quantitative data to tests of reliability is at least as great as in the case of literary sources. And once the figures have been verified, their interpretation and their application to the solution of specific historical problems require the same qualities of judgement and flair as any other kind of evidence.

不可靠的统计证据

Unreliable statistical evidence

如果历史学家有幸找到一套现成的统计数据——例如进出口表格或一系列人口普查报告——就能节省大量工作。然而,我们绝不能想当然地认为这些资料可靠。我们需要确切地了解这些数据是如何统计出来的。现场统计人员的记录是否出于自身利益而有所扭曲——就像税务员少报税款并将差额收入囊中一样?这些数据是否是坐在办公室里的官员凭空捏造的,或是某个算术能力欠佳的下属随意统计的?英国殖民时期公布的那些看似令人印象深刻的统计数据,就存在这两种可能性。非洲的行政机构往往依赖于教育程度低、薪酬微薄的官员提交的统计数据。当这些数据在官僚机构中层层传递时,抄写出错的可能性有多大?同一项数据是否可能被不同的官员重复统计?如果统计数据是通过问卷调查收集的,例如社会调查或人口普查,我们需要了解问卷的具体形式,才能确定受访者可能产生的困惑程度;此外,我们还必须考虑诸如收入或年龄等问题是否可能获得坦诚的回答。只有运用历史学家的传统技能,对数据收集的具体情况进行调查,才能解答这些问题。

A historian is saved an immense amount of work if he or she is lucky enough to find a set of ready-made statistics – say a table of imports and exports or a sequence of census reports. Yet the reliability of such sources must never be taken for granted. We need to know exactly how the figures were put together. Were the returns made by the man-on-the-spot distorted by his own self-interest – like the tax-collector who understated his takings and pocketed the difference? Were the figures conjured out of thin air by a desk-bound official, or totted up by a subordinate who was not competent in arithmetic? Both these possibilities arise in the case of impressive-looking statistics published by British colonial administrations in Africa, which were often based on returns made by poorly educated and underpaid chiefs. How much scope was there for errors of copying as the figures were passed on from one level of the bureaucracy to the next? Could the same item have been counted twice by different officials? Where statistics were compiled from questionnaires, as in social surveys or the census, we need to know the form in which the questions were put in order to determine the scope for confusion on the part of the respondents, and we have to consider whether the questions – on income or age, for example – were likely to elicit frank answers. Only an investigation of the circumstances of compilation, using the conventional skills of the historian, can provide the answer to these questions.

英国每十年进行一次的人口普查始于1801年拿破仑战争时期。这些普查数据是经济史、社会史、地方史乃至家族史研究者的重要资源;当国家档案馆将1901年的人口普查记录上传至网络时,访问量之大导致系统立即崩溃。但是,人口普查记录的准确性究竟如何?受访者是否说了实话?普查员是否犯了错误?定量方法无法解答这些问题。(CORBIS/Hulton Archive)

Regular ten-year censuses in Britain started in 1801, during the Napoleonic Was. They constitute a key resource for economic, social, local and even family historians; when the National Archives put the 1901 census returns on the web, demand for access was so great that the system immediately crashed. But how accurate are census returns? Were respondents telling the truth? Did census enumerators make mistakes? Quantitative methods cannot tell us. (CORBIS/Hulton Archive)

历史学家通常感兴趣的并非单一的数字集合,而是能够从中描绘趋势的一系列随时间变化的数据。因此,这些数据不仅要检验其可靠性,还要检验其可比性。无论此类序列中的各个总数多么准确,只有当它们具有严格的可比性——也就是说,它们衡量的是同一个变量——时,才能将其视为统计序列。即使只有微小的差异,也足以构成统计序列。评估的基础在于使比较无效。看似清晰一致的分类,随着时间的推移或地域的差异,其应用方式可能有所不同,这也是为什么即使在今天,比较犯罪统计数据也必须谨慎对待的原因之一。以英国人口普查为例,自1841年以来,每次普查中职业分类表的不断细化,使得量化特定职业的增长和衰落变得困难。即使是最看似简单的统计序列,也可能隐藏着此类陷阱。例如,官方生活成本指数,它衡量的是普通“购物袋”的价格与当前工资水平之间的关系。在英国,该指数始于1914年,理应能够可靠地反映20世纪30年代大萧条时期生活水平的下降。但在两次世界大战之间的时期,该指数的价格部分仍然基于相同的“购物袋”概念,尽管消费模式的改变意味着1914年各种商品(新鲜蔬菜、肉类、服装等)的权重已不再与普通家庭预算的实际构成相符。31

Often what interests historians is less a single set of figures than a sequence over time which enables them to plot a trend. The figures must accordingly be tested not only for their reliability but for their comparability. However accurate the individual totals in such a sequence may be, they can only be regarded as a statistical sequence if they are strictly comparable – if, that is, they are measuring the same variable. It needs only a slight discrepancy in the basis of assessment to render comparisons null and void. A classification that seems clear and consistent on paper may be applied differently over time, or between one place and another, which is one reason why even today comparative criminal statistics have to be treated so cautiously. In the case of the English census, the increasing refinement of the occupational schedule in every count since 1841 means that it is difficult to quantify the growth and decline of specific occupations. Even the most seemingly straightforward statistical sequences may conceal pitfalls of this kind. Consider, for example, the official cost-of-living index, which measures the cost of a typical ‘shopping-bag’ against the current wage-rate. In Britain the index, begun in 1914, ought to provide a reliable picture of the declining standard of living during the Depression of the 1930s. But during the inter-war period the price side of the index continued to be based on the same ‘shopping-bag’, even though changing patterns of consumption meant that the weighting given to the various items (fresh vegetables, meat, clothing, etc.) in 1914 no longer corresponded with the actual make-up of the average family budget.31

职业时间表

occupational schedule

人口普查中列出的职业清单。人口普查中统计的个人的职业必须符合清单上的职业。清单的定义在每次人口普查中都不尽相同。

The list of recognised occupations in the census. The given occupation of individuals enumerated in the census had to conform to the schedule. The schedule was defined differently from one census to the next.

统计数据汇编

Compiling the statistics

然而,大多数定量历史研究并非基于现成的统计数据。直到十七世纪末,人们才开始探讨运用统计方法处理公共事务的优势;直到十九世纪,国家才拥有开展此类工作的人力和财力资源;直到二十世纪,政府和私人机构才真正全面地收集统计信息。对于大多数历史学家感兴趣的问题,很可能需要从现存的相关资料中费力地构建数据。构建能够从中得出有效统计推论的定量数据绝非易事。在历史学家从各种分散的史料中搜寻数据的过程中,可靠性和可比性问题将会反复出现。

Most quantitative history, however, is not based on ready-made statistics. It was only in the late seventeenth century that the advantages of a statistical approach to public issues began to be canvassed, only during the nineteenth century that the state acquired the resources of manpower and money to undertake such work, and only in the twentieth century that statistical information was gathered in a really comprehensive way by both government and private bodies. For most of the questions that interest historians, the likelihood is that the figures will have to be laboriously constructed from the relevant surviving materials. To construct quantitative data in such a way that valid statistical inferences can be drawn from them is no easy matter. The issues of reliability and comparability will be posed, not once, but many times over, as the historian seeks out data from varied and scattered source materials.

对于研究十九世纪以前历史的学者而言,时间的侵蚀可能已经部分或完全解决了史料选择的问题。但现存的史料仍然是原始记录范围的一个样本,因此,了解这些史料选择问题至关重要。必须认识到,这往往并非随机抽样。某些类型的记录比其他类型的记录更容易保存下来,因为它们的拥有者更重视这些记录的保存,或者拥有更好的保存条件,这些原因可能会给样本带来明显的偏差。因此,现存的商业记录几乎总是偏向于那些成功且长期经营的企业,而那些无法渡过危机的小型企业则被忽视。劳伦斯·斯通在研究1558年至1641年间的英国贵族时,就遇到了类似的问题。尽管他掌握了当时所有382位拥有爵位人士的部分信息,但拥有大量私人文件的贵族家庭比例从未超过三分之一,而且这些家庭大多是富有的伯爵,而非那些地产更容易衰败或分散的小男爵。因此,斯通不得不承认,他的许多研究结果都来自一个不具代表性的样本。32这只是历史学家在寻求量化清晰性时所面临的陷阱之一。

For the historian of periods earlier than the nineteenth century, the problem of selection is likely to have been partly or wholly solved by the ravages of time. But the residue that survives is still a sample of the original range of records, and it is important to recognize that it is often anything but a random sample. Some types of record are more likely to survive than others because their owners had a greater interest in their survival or better facilities for preserving them, for reasons that may introduce a manifest bias into the sample. Thus surviving business records are nearly always weighted in favour of the successful long-lasting firm, at the expense of smaller businesses that were unable to weather a crisis. Lawrence Stone was dogged by a problem of this kind in his study of the English aristocracy between 1558 and 1641. Although he had some information on all the 382 individuals who held titles at that period, the proportion of noble families whose private papers survive in abundance never rose above one-third, and these families were mostly those of wealthy earls rather than minor barons whose estates were more subject to disintegration or dispersal. Stone was accordingly obliged to make allowances for the fact that many of his findings were drawn from an unrepresentative sample.32 This is just one of the pitfalls that lie in wait for the historian seeking clarity in quantification.

六年级

VI

方法论和直觉

Methodology and instinct

在研究史料时,历史学家绝非被动的旁观者。相关的证据必须在相当偏僻甚至出人意料的地方寻觅。要充分理解单一史料的各种用途,需要巧妙的构思和敏锐的洞察力。对于每一种类型的证据,历史学家都必须探究其产生的原因和方式,以及其真正的意义所在。不同的史料必须相互比较,伪造和缺失之处也必须加以解释。任何文献,无论多么权威,都不能免于质疑;正如E·P·汤普森所言,证据必须“由训练有素、秉持审慎怀疑精神的头脑进行审视”。 33如果“方法”一词暗示着刻意运用一套科学程序来验证证据,那么这些原则或许难以称之为方法。诚然,自兰克时代以来,已有无数历史方法论手册被编写出来,以指导研究生的研究;在欧洲大陆和美国,研究技巧的正规教学早已成为研究生历史学培训的一部分。然而,英国直到最近才开始……这里是“博采众长”式史料批判方法的发源地。著名历史学家、研究两次世界大战之间历史的学者G·M·杨曾宣称,他的目标是深入了解一个时期,直到能够听懂那个时期人们的说话方式。理查德·科布后来也表达了类似的观点:

In approaching the sources, the historian is anything but a passive observer. The relevant evidence has to be sought after in fairly out-of-the-way and improbable places. Ingenuity and flair are required to grasp the full range of uses to which a single source may be put. Of each type of evidence the historian has to ask how and why it came into being, and what its real import is. Divergent sources have to be weighed against each other, forgeries and gaps explained. No document, however authoritative, is beyond question; the evidence must, in E.P. Thompson’s telling phrase, ‘be interrogated by minds trained in a discipline of attentive disbelief’.33 Perhaps these precepts hardly merit the name of method, if that suggests the deliberate application of a set sequence of scientific procedures for verifying the evidence. Innumerable handbooks of historical method have, it is true, been written for the guidance of research students since Ranke’s time, and in mainland Europe and the United States formal instruction in research techniques has long been part of the postgraduate historian’s training.34 Britain, on the other hand, has until recently been the home of the ‘green fingers’ approach to source criticism. G.M. Young, an eminent historian of the inter-war period, declared that his aim was to read in a period until he could hear its people speak. He was later echoed by Richard Cobb:

最有天赋的研究者愿意仔细聆听文件的措辞,受其每一个字句和细微之处的指引……以便听清字里行间究竟在说什么,用怎样的口音和语气表达。35

The most gifted researchers show a willingness to listen to the wording of the document, to be governed by its every phrase and murmur … so as to hear what is actually being said, in what accent and with what tone.35

这与其说是一种方法,不如说是一种心态——几乎是一种本能——这种心态只能通过反复试验才能获得。

This suggests not so much a method as an attitude of mind – an instinct almost – which can only be acquired by trial and error.

但像科布那样进一步论证历史研究的原则完全无法定义,则是一种故弄玄虚。 36实际上,对一部二手著作的负面评价往往取决于作者是否运用了某种检验方法。诚然,这些规则无法简化为公式,具体程序也会因证据类型而异;但经验丰富的学者几乎不假思索就能完成的许多工作,都可以用外行也能理解的语言来描述——正如我在此尝试的那样。如此阐述之后,历史方法似乎不过是显而易见的常识而已。但实际上,它是比日常生活中更为系统和严谨地运用常识,并以对历史背景的深刻理解以及在许多情况下所需的高超专业知识为支撑。正是凭借这些严苛的标准,历史研究才需要接受评判。

But to argue further, as Cobb did, that the principles of historical enquiry defy definition altogether is a mystification.36 In practice, unfavourable notice of a secondary work often turns on the author’s failure to apply this or that test to the evidence. Admittedly, the rules cannot be reduced to a formula, and the exact procedures vary according to the type of evidence; but much of what the experienced scholar does almost without thinking can be described – as I have tried to do here – in terms that are comprehensible to the uninitiated. When spelt out in this way, historical method may seem to amount to little more than the obvious lessons of common sense. But it is common sense applied very much more systematically and sceptically than is usually the case in everyday life, supported by a secure grasp of historical context and, in many instances, a high degree of technical knowledge. It is by these taxing standards that historical research demands to be judged.

斯塔布斯主教的《精选宪章》与英国宪法

Bishop Stubbs’ Select Charters and the British constitution

十九世纪英国历史学家威廉·斯塔布斯主教(1829-1901)的著作是运用学术历史研究解决当代问题的典范。斯塔布斯曾任牛津大学钦定现代史教授,后任切斯特主教和牛津主教。他编纂的中世纪宪章以及三卷本的《英国宪政史》旨在通过详尽的文献证据展现英国法律和政治制度的古老性,从而证明其合法性。因此,他的著作在今天仍然具有重要意义。它不仅揭示了维多利亚时代的思维方式,而且有助于理解斯塔布斯实际研究的时期。

The work of the nineteenth-century British historian Bishop William Stubbs (1829–1901) is an example of the application of scholarly historical research to contemporary concerns. Stubbs was Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, and later Bishop of Chester and of Oxford. His compilation of medieval charters and his three-volume Constitutional History of England were drawn up to show through exhaustive documentary evidence the antiquity – and therefore the legitimacy – of English legal and political institutions. His work is therefore as important nowadays for what it reveals about the Victorian mentality as it is for understanding the period Stubbs was actually studying.

英国在巴勒斯坦的统治

British rule in Palestine

巴勒斯坦大致相当于今天的以色列和约旦,在第一次世界大战后,英国根据国际联盟的委任统治接管了该地区,此前它一直是奥斯曼土耳其帝国的一个省份。然而,英国也受1917年《贝尔福宣言》的约束,承诺在巴勒斯坦为犹太人建立家园。20世纪30年代,巴勒斯坦人对犹太移民的抵制日益加剧。第二次世界大战和纳粹大屠杀之后,要求在巴勒斯坦大规模建立犹太人定居点的呼声日益高涨,并获得了国际社会的广泛支持。犹太恐怖组织伊尔根和斯特恩帮对英国军队和行政大楼发动了一系列炸弹袭击。英国试图建立某种阿拉伯-犹太双民族国家的努力失败了,1947年,联合国同意将巴勒斯坦分割为犹太人和阿拉伯人两个国家。1948年,英国将委任统治权交还给联合国,联合国随即宣布以色列建国。

Palestine, roughly equivalent to modern-day Israel and Jordan, was a province of the Turkish Ottoman Empire until after the First World War, when the British took the area over, under mandate from the League of Nations. However, the British were also bound by their undertaking under the 1917 Balfour Declaration to establish a homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people. Palestinian resistance to Jewish immigration grew steadily through the 1930s. After the Second World War and the Holocaust, increasing demands for large-scale Jewish settlement in Palestine enjoyed considerable international support. Jewish terrorist groups, Irgun and the Stern Gang, launched a series of bomb attacks on British troops and administration buildings. British attempts to create some sort of bi-national Arab–Jewish state failed, and in 1947 the United Nations (UN) agreed to partition Palestine between Jews and Arabs. Britain handed the mandate back to the UN in 1948, and the UN immediately declared the Jewish state of Israel.

延伸阅读

Further reading

马克·布洛赫《历史学家的技艺》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,1954年。

Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, Manchester University Press, 1954.

G. Kitson Clark《批判历史学家》,海涅曼出版社,1967 年。

G. Kitson Clark, The Critical Historian, Heinemann, 1967.

GR Elton《历史的实践》,悉尼大学出版社,1967 年。

G.R. Elton, The Practice of History, Sydney University Press, 1967.

Jacques Barzun & Henry F. Graff《现代研究者》,第 3 版,Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 出版社,1977 年。

Jacques Barzun & Henry F. Graff, The Modern Researcher, 3rd edn, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.

John Fines《阅读历史文献:学生手册》,Blackwell 出版社,1988 年。

John Fines, Reading Historical Documents: A Manual for Students, Blackwell, 1988.

VH Galbraith《历史研究导论》,Watts出版社,1964年。

V.H. Galbraith, An Introduction to the Study of History, Watts, 1964.

Jacques Le Goff & Pierre Nora (编), 《建构过去:历史方法论论文集》,剑桥大学出版社,1985 年。

Jacques Le Goff & Pierre Nora (eds), Constructing the Past: Essays in Historical Methodology, Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Edward Higgs《更清晰地了解人口普查:维多利亚时代的人口普查和历史研究》,PRO,1996 年。

Edward Higgs, A Clearer Sense of the Census: The Victorian Census and Historical Research, PRO, 1996.

Stephen Davies《经验主义与历史》,帕尔格雷夫出版社,2003年。

Stephen Davies, Empiricism and History, Palgrave, 2003.

笔记

Notes

  1   Anthony P. Adamthwaite,《第二次世界大战的形成》,Allen & Unwin 出版社,1977 年,第 20 页。

  1  Anthony P. Adamthwaite, The Making of the Second World War, Allen & Unwin, 1977, p. 20.

  2   Richard Cobb,《第二身份:法国和法国历史论文集》,牛津大学出版社,1969 年,第 15 页。

  2  Richard Cobb, A Second Identity: Essays on France and French History, Oxford University Press, 1969, p. 15.

  3   JH Hexter,《论历史学家》,Allen Lane,1979 年,第 241 页。给克里斯托弗·希尔贴上这个标签相当不公平。

  3  J.H. Hexter, On Historians, Allen Lane, 1979, p. 241. The label is rather unfairly pinned on Christopher Hill.

  4   Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie,《朗格多克的农民》,伊利诺伊大学出版社,1974 年,第 4 页。

  4  Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Peasants of Languedoc, Illinois University Press, 1974, p. 4.

  5   CR Cheney,《中世纪文本与研究》,牛津大学出版社,1973 年,第 8 页。

  5  C.R. Cheney, Medieval Texts and Studies, Oxford University Press, 1973, p. 8.

  6威廉·卡姆登, 《不列颠尼亚》  序言(1586 年),引自 JR Hale(编),《英国史学的发展》,麦克米伦出版社,1967 年,第 15 页。

  6  William Camden, Preface to Britannia (1586), as quoted in J.R. Hale (ed.), The Evolution of British Historiography, Macmillan, 1967, p. 15.

  7  阿克顿勋爵,《现代史讲义》,丰塔纳出版社,1960 年(1906 年首次出版),第 22 页。

  7  Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History, Fontana, 1960 (first published in 1906), p. 22.

  8   Marc Bloch,《历史学家的技艺》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,1954 年,第 86 页。

  8  Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, Manchester University Press, 1954, p. 86.

  9   Robert Harris,《推销希特勒:希特勒日记的故事》,Arrow出版社,1996年。

  9  Robert Harris, Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries, Arrow, 1996.

10   Helen Wallis 等人,“文兰地图的奇特案例:研讨会”,《地理杂志》 ,CXL,1974 年,第 183-214 页。

10  Helen Wallis et al., ‘The strange case of the Vinland Map: a symposium’, Geographical Journal, CXL, 1974, pp. 183–214.

11   Bloch,《历史学家的技艺》,第 165 页;JJ Bagley,《历史诠释》,第一卷:英国中世纪历史的资料,1066–1540 年,企鹅出版社,1965 年,第 24、29–30 页。

11  Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, p. 165; J.J. Bagley, Historical Interpretation, vol. I: Sources of English Medieval History, 1066–1540, Penguin, 1965, pp. 24, 29–30.

12例如,参见 Richard Vaughan 所著《马修·帕里斯》(剑桥大学出版社,1958 年)第 11-18 页  中令人印象深刻的线人和联系人名单。

12  See, for example, the impressive list of informants and contacts in Richard Vaughan, Matthew Paris, Cambridge University Press, 1958, pp. 11–18.

13   Antonia Gransden,《英国历史写作,约 550 年至约 1307 年》,Routledge & Kegan Paul 出版社,1974 年,第 242-245 页、367-372 页。

13  Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England, c.550 to c.1307, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974, pp. 242–5, 367–72.

14   Stephen Koss,《阿斯奎斯》,艾伦巷出版社,1976 年,第 181-2 页,第 217 页。

14  Stephen Koss, Asquith, Allen Lane, 1976, pp. 181–2, 217.

15   Andrew McDonald,《公共记录与现代历史学家》,《二十世纪英国史》第一卷,1990 年,第 341-352 页。

15  Andrew McDonald, ‘Public records and the modern historian’, Twentieth-Century British History, I, 1990, pp. 341–52.

16   VH Galbraith,《末日审判书的编纂》,牛津大学出版社,1964 年。TG Ashplant 和 Adrian Wilson 在《以现在为中心的历史与历史知识问题》一文中对这种方法表示赞赏,该文发表于《历史杂志》第 31 卷,1988 年,第 253-274 页。

16  V.H. Galbraith, The Making of Domesday Book, Oxford University Press, 1964. This approach is commended in T.G. Ashplant and Adrian Wilson, ‘Present-centred history and the problem of historical knowledge’, Historical Journal, XXXI, 1988, pp. 253–74.

17  昆汀·斯金纳,《思想史中的意义与理解》,《历史与理论》,第 VIII 卷,1969 年,第 3-53 页;以及 JGA 波科克,《政治、语言与时间》,梅休恩出版社,1972 年,尤其是第 1 章

17  Quentin Skinner, ‘Meaning and understanding in the history of ideas’, History and Theory, VIII, 1969, pp. 3–53, and J.G.A. Pocock, Politics, Language and Time, Methuen, 1972, especially ch. 1.

18   GW Keeton,《杰弗里斯大法官与斯图亚特王朝》,麦克唐纳出版社,1965 年,第 23 页。

18  G.W. Keeton, Lord Chancellor Jeffreys and the Stuart Cause, Macdonald, 1965, p. 23.

19   Michael Roper,“二十世纪的公共记录和政策过程”, 《公共行政》,第55卷,1977年,第153-168页。

19  Michael Roper, ‘Public records and the policy process in the twentieth century’, Public Administration, LV, 1977, pp. 153–68.

20   Colin Holmes,“政府文件和特权访问”,社会史第六卷,1981 年,第 342 页。

20  Colin Holmes, ‘Government files and privileged access’, Social History, VI, 1981, p. 342.

21   G. Kitson Clark,《批判历史学家》,Heinemann出版社,1967年,第92-96页、109-114页。

21  G. Kitson Clark, The Critical Historian, Heinemann, 1967, pp. 92–6, 109–14.

22   Herbert Butterfield,《人谈往事》,剑桥大学出版社,1955 年,第 90 页。

22  Herbert Butterfield, Man on His Past, Cambridge University Press, 1955, p. 90.

23   JD Fage(编),《非洲发现她的过去》,牛津大学出版社,1970 年。

23  J.D. Fage (ed.), Africa Discovers Her Past, Oxford University Press, 1970.

24   Carroll Smith-Rosenberg,《扰乱秩序:维多利亚时代美国的性别观念》,牛津大学出版社,1986 年,第 25-27 页。

24  Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp. 25–7.

25  有关更详细的讨论和示例,请参阅 Alan Booth 和 Sean Glynn 的文章“公共记录和近期英国经济史学”,《经济史评论》第二辑,第 32 卷, 1979 年,第 303-315 页。

25  For a fuller discussion, with examples, see Alan Booth and Sean Glynn, ‘The public records and recent British economic historiography’, Economic History Review, 2nd series, XXXII, 1979, pp. 303–15.

26   GJ Renier,《历史:其目的和方法》,Allen & Unwin 出版社,1950 年,第 96-105 页。

26  G.J. Renier, History: Its Purpose and Method, Allen & Unwin, 1950, pp. 96–105.

27   Margaret Spufford,《对比社区:十六、十七世纪的英国村民》,剑桥大学出版社,1974 年,第 320-44 页。

27  Margaret Spufford, Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Cambridge University Press, 1974, pp. 320–44.

28   Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie,《蒙塔尤:法国乡村的卡特里派和天主教徒,1294-1324》,企鹅出版社,1980 年,第 xiii 页。

28  Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village, 1294–1324, Penguin, 1980, p. xiii.

29  同上,第 231 页。

29  Ibid., p. 231.

30  理查德·科布,《街景》,载于其著作《场所感》 ,达克沃斯出版社,1975 年,第 79-135 页。

30  Richard Cobb, ‘A view on the street’, in his A Sense of Place, Duckworth, 1975, pp. 79–135.

31   BR Mitchell 和 Phyllis Deane,《英国历史统计摘要》,剑桥大学出版社,1962 年,第 466 页。有关生活成本指数所引发的问题的说明,请参阅 Roderick Floud,《历史学家定量方法导论》,第 2 版,Methuen 出版社,1979 年,第 125-129 页。

31  B.R. Mitchell and Phyllis Deane, Abstract of British Historical Statistics, Cambridge University Press, 1962, p. 466. For an account of the problems raised by cost-of-living indexes, see Roderick Floud, An Introduction to Quantitative Methods for Historians, 2nd edn, Methuen, 1979, pp. 125–9.

32  劳伦斯·斯通,《贵族危机,1558-1641》,牛津大学出版社,1965年,第130页。

32  Lawrence Stone, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558–1641, Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 130.

33   EP Thompson,《理论的贫困》,Merlin出版社,1978年,第220-221页。

33  E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory, Merlin Press, 1978, pp. 220–1.

34  经典著作是 C.V. Langlois 和 C. Seignobos 合著的《历史研究导论》(Greenwood 出版社,1979 年出版,初版于 1898 年)。Louis Gottschalk 的《理解历史:历史方法入门》(Knopf 出版社,1950 年出版)以及 Jacques Barzun 和 Henry F. Graff 合著的《现代研究者》(Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 出版社,第三版,1977 年出版)是较新的著作。

34  The classic work is C.V. Langlois and C. Seignobos, Introduction to the Study of History, Greenwood, 1979, first published in 1898. Louis Gottschalk, Understanding History: A Primer of Historical Method, Knopf, 1950, and Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff, The Modern Researcher, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 3rd edn, 1977, are more recent statements.

35   Richard Cobb,《英国现代法国史》,牛津大学出版社,1974 年,第 14 页。

35  Richard Cobb, Modern French History in Britain, Oxford University Press, 1974, p. 14.

36  理查德·科布,《成为历史学家》,载于《地方感》,第 47-48 页。另见雅克·巴尔赞,《克利奥与医生》,芝加哥大学出版社,1974 年,第 90 页。

36  Richard Cobb, ‘Becoming a historian’, in his A Sense of Place, pp. 47–8. See also Jacques Barzun, Clio and the Doctors, Chicago University Press, 1974, p. 90.

第六章

Chapter Six

写作与诠释

Writing and interpretation

大多数学生的历史写作经验仅限于撰写论文或作业,回答他人为了评估而提出的问题。然而,历史学家通常能够根据自己挖掘出的材料提出问题,并可以根据自己的意愿规划和设计作品。那么,历史学家如何将研究成果转化为历史写作?历史学家的诠释在这一过程中又扮演着怎样的角色?

Most students’ experience of historical writing is limited to producing essays or assignments, addressing questions and problems set by others for assessment purposes. Historians, however, are usually able to set their own questions of the material they have unearthed, and can plan and design their work as they choose. How, then, does the historian turn research into historical writing? And what role does the historian’s interpretation play in the process?

T按照前一章所述,运用批判性方法分析原始资料,通常能够验证大量与某一特定问题或一组相关问题相关的历史事实。然而,只有将这些零散的资料整合起来,形成连贯的论述,才能充分理解其意义。这些资料的衔接方式并非显而易见或预先设定,通常需要反复尝试才能完成。许多擅长研究原始资料的历史学家都发现,整理资料的过程极其艰辛且令人沮丧。他们往往会忍不住继续收集资料,以便无限期地推迟最终的审视。

The application of critical method to the primary sources along the lines described in the previous chapter generally results in the validation of a large number of facts about the past with a bearing on one particular issue, or a group of related issues, but the significance of this material can only be fully grasped when the individual items are related to each other in a coherent exposition. There is nothing obvious or predetermined about the way in which the pieces fit together, and the feat is usually accomplished only as a result of much trial and error. Many historians who have a flair for working on primary sources find the process of composition excruciatingly laborious and frustrating. The temptation is to continue amassing material so that the time of reckoning can be put off indefinitely.

I

历史学家需要撰写历史吗?

Do historians need to write history?

一种观点认为,历史写作根本毫无意义。这类历史学家们表现出的强烈热情……研读原始文献的经验使他们得出这样的结论:唯一真正称得上历史教育的方式就是研究原始资料——最好是原始版本,如果无法获得原始版本,则使用可靠的版本。V·H·加尔布雷思是这一观点最严谨的拥护者之一,他是一位杰出的中世纪史学家,曾于20世纪50年代担任牛津大学钦定讲座教授。他几乎所有的出版著作都致力于阐释特定的文献,并将它们置于历史背景之中——尤其是《末日审判书》和圣奥尔本斯修道院编年史;他从未撰写过关于14世纪英格兰的全面阐释性著作,而他恰恰具备这方面的独特优势。正如他所说:

One school of opinion maintains that historical writing is of no real significance anyway. The intense excitement that such historians experience in contemplating the original documents has led them to the position that the only historical education worth the name is the study of primary sources – preferably in their original state, but failing that in reliable editions. One of the austerest proponents of this view was V.H. Galbraith, a distinguished medievalist who was Regius Professor at Oxford in the 1950s. Almost all his published work was devoted to elucidating particular documents and placing them in their historical context – notably Domesday Book and the chronicles of St Albans Abbey; he never wrote the broad interpretative work on fourteenth-century England for which he was uniquely qualified. As he put it:

从长远来看,真正重要的并非我们现在如何书写历史,或者其他人如何书写历史,而是原始史料本身……对后世无限启发的力量就蕴藏在原始史料之中

What really matters in the long run is not so much what we write about history now, or what others have written, as the original sources themselves … The power of unlimited inspiration to successive generations lies in the original sources.1

这种纯粹主义立场有一定的逻辑性。它会引起所有那些研究以史料为导向而非以问题为导向的历史学家的共鸣(见第121页),他们中的许多人发现,何时(如果有的话)进行综合分析的时机极其难以确定。在历史学中,与其他大多数学科相比,对原始资料的无方向性沉浸具有理论上的正当性。接触原始资料应当是任何历史研究计划的重要组成部分,而学者的声誉继续建立在这些资料的编辑之上也完全合情合理。但是,作为一种普遍的指导原则,加尔布雷思对传统历史写作的摒弃是完全错误的。这当然意味着放弃历史学所有关于社会意义的诉求,而这些诉求要求历史学家将他们的研究成果传达给更广泛的受众。但即便假设这些关于社会意义的诉求可以被驳斥,其灾难性后果也丝毫不会减轻。因为正是通过写作,历史学家才能理解他们的研究经验,并将他们获得的关于过去的洞见凝聚成一个整体。许多科学著作以报告的形式呈现,表达科学家在动笔之前就已经完全清晰的发现。历史写作是否也遵循同样的模式,则非常值得怀疑。任何历史事件的真实面貌,正如史料所揭示的那样,都极其复杂,有时甚至自相矛盾,只有通过严谨的写作,力求以连贯的散文形式,有始有终地表达出来,研究者才能真正把握其全貌。历史经验不同领域之间的联系。许多历史学家都注意到历史写作的这种创造性,正是这种创造性使其与档案馆的侦查工作一样令人兴奋。历史写作对于历史理解至关重要,那些回避历史写作的人,算不上真正的历史学家。

There is a certain logic about this purist position. It will evoke a sympathetic response in all those historians whose research is source-oriented rather than problem-oriented (see p. 121), many of whom find it extraordinarily difficult to determine when, if ever, the time for synthesis has arrived. In history, more than most other disciplines, undirected immersion in the raw materials has an intellectual justification. Exposure to original sources ought to feature in any programme of historical study, and it is entirely proper that scholarly reputations should continue to be founded on the editing of these materials. But as a general prescription Galbraith’s rejection of conventional historical writing is completely misplaced. It would of course entail an abdication from all history’s claims to social relevance, which require that historians communicate what they have learned to a wider audience. But it would be hardly less disastrous even supposing that these claims to relevance could be refuted. For it is in the act of writing that historians make sense of their research experience and bring into focus whatever insights into the past they have gained. Much scientific writing takes the form of a report expressing findings that are entirely clear in the scientist’s mind before he or she puts pen to paper. It is highly doubtful whether any historical writing proceeds in the same way. The reality of any historical conjuncture as revealed in the sources is so complex, and sometimes so contradictory, that only the discipline of seeking to express it in continuous prose with a beginning and an end enables the researcher to grasp the connections between one area of historical experience and another. Many historians have remarked on this creative aspect of historical writing, which is what can make it no less exhilarating than the detective work in the archives.2 Historical writing is essential to historical understanding, and those who shrink from undertaking it are something less than historians.

钦定教授

Regius Professor

由王室任命的“皇家”教授。钦定教授职位设立于十八世纪,旨在将政府的控制权扩展到牛津大学和剑桥大学。

A ‘royal’ professor appointed by the crown. Regius professorships were introduced in the eighteenth century as a means of extending government control into the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

《末日审判书》

Domesday Book

1086年,英国国王威廉一世下令对英格兰土地所有权进行了著名的调查。

The famous survey of land tenure in England undertaken on the orders of King William I in 1086.

II

历史写作的形式

The forms of historical writing

历史写作的特点在于其形式多样。描述、叙述和分析这三种基本技巧可以以多种方式组合,而每个项目都会提出如何运用这些技巧的新问题。这种缺乏明确指导原则的情况,部分反映了历史学家研究对象的巨大多样性:不可能存在一种文学形式能够适用于呈现人类历史的方方面面。但更重要的是,这源于历史写作背后不同甚至有时相互矛盾的目的,以及所有历史探究的核心——重现过去的愿望与诠释过去的渴望之间的张力。对于历史写作的多样性,一个粗略的解释是:叙述和描述满足了第一个需求,而分析则试图解决第二个需求。

Historical writing is characterized by a wide range of literary forms. The three basic techniques of description, narrative and analysis can be combined in many different ways, and every project poses afresh the problem of how they should be deployed. This lack of clear guidelines is partly a reflection of the great diversity of the historian’s subject matter: there could not possibly be one literary form suited to the presentation of every aspect of the human past. But it is much more the result of the different and sometimes contradictory purposes behind historical writing, and above all of the tension that lies at the heart of all historical enquiry between the desire to re-create the past and the urge to interpret it. A rough and ready explanation for the variety of historical writing is that narrative and description address the first requirement, while analysis attempts to grapple with the second.

历史描述

History as description

重现过去——“完整、具体、复杂地重构历史瞬间” ³——绝非纯粹的智力活动,这一点从其最具代表性的文学形式——描述——便可看出。历史学家力图通过营造氛围或描绘场景,为读者创造身临其境的幻觉。大量平庸的历史著作证明,这种效果并非仅靠对史料的掌握就能实现。它需要丰富的想象力和敏锐的观察力,这与小说家或诗人如出一辙。十九世纪历史描述大师,如麦考利和卡莱尔,对此深信不疑,他们深受同时代作家的影响,并在文风上精雕细琢。现代历史学家虽然不那么刻意追求“文学性”,但他们同样能够写出极具感染力的描述性文字——费尔南·布罗代尔对十六世纪地中海环境的宏大描绘便是最好的例证。⁴不管他们还有什么其他特质,这样的历史学家都是艺术家,而这样的人才实在太少了。

That the re-creation of the past – ‘the reconstruction of the historical moment in all its fullness, concreteness and complexity’3 – is more than a purely intellectual task is plain to see from its most characteristic literary form: description. Here historians are striving to create in their readers the illusion of direct experience, by evoking an atmosphere or setting a scene. A great many runof-the-mill historical works testify to the fact that this effect is not achieved by mastery of the sources alone. It requires imaginative powers and an eye for detail not unlike those of the novelist or poet. This analogy would have been taken for granted by the great nineteenth-century masters of historical description such as Macaulay and Carlyle, who were much influenced by contemporary creative writers and took immense pains with their style. Modern historians are less self-consciously ‘literary’, but they too are capable of remarkably evocative descriptive writing – witness Fernand Braudel’s great panorama of the Mediterranean environment in the sixteenth century.4 Whatever else they may be, such historians are artists, and there are too few of them.

历史即叙事

History as narrative

布罗代尔的作品在今天看来不同寻常,因为它对描述的重视程度令人瞩目。尽管这种写作方式有效——甚至不可或缺——但它无法表达历史学家对时间流逝的首要关注。因此,它的作用始终从属于历史学家重塑历史的主要技巧:叙事。在大多数欧洲语言中,“历史”一词与“故事”一词相同(法语:histoire;意大利语:storia;德语:Geschichte)。叙事也是历史学家与作家——尤其是小说家和史诗诗人——所共有的一种形式,它解释了历史历来深受读者喜爱的原因。与其他叙事形式一样,历史叙事能够通过营造悬念和唤起强烈情感来吸引读者。但叙事也是历史学家传达观察或参与过去事件感受的基本技巧。最能成功实现历史再现效果的叙事形式,往往是那些最接近我们自身生活体验的时间感的形式:无论是按小时计算(如战役记述),还是按天计算(如政治危机记述),亦或是按自然生命周期计算(如传记)。伟大的历史再现大师们,无一例外都是戏剧化且生动传神的叙事大师。为纪念法国大革命两百周年,西蒙·沙玛出版了一部杰出的叙事史著作《公民》(1989),其副标题恰如其分地概括了“法国大革命编年史”。其他历史学家也运用多重叙事手法来展现过去的重大变革,通过众多个体的视角来审视这些重大事件。黛安·珀基斯在其对英国革命的记述中运用了这种技巧,奥兰多·费吉斯在其对俄国革命的史学著作中也采用了这种手法——正如他所说,俄国革命是“一场由错综复杂的个人悲剧构成的人类事件”。5在这类作品中,我们可以充分看到历史叙事的优点:精确的时间顺序、偶然性和意外性的作用、反讽的运用,以及或许最重要的是,事件的真正复杂性让参与者常常陷入困境。

Braudel’s work is unusual today for the prominence that it accords to description. For effective – indeed indispensable – as such writing is, it cannot express the historian’s primary concern with the passage of time. Its role has therefore always been subordinated to the main technique of the re-creative historian: narrative. In most European languages the word for ‘history’ is the same as that used for ‘story’ (French, histoire; Italian, storia; German, Geschichte). Narrative too is a form the historian shares with the creative writer – especially the novelist and the epic poet – and it explains much of the appeal that history has traditionally enjoyed with the reading public. Like other forms of story-telling, historical narrative can entertain through its ability to create suspense and arouse powerful emotions. But narrative is also the historian’s basic technique for conveying what it felt like to observe or participate in past events. The forms of narrative that achieve the effect of re-creation most successfully are those that approximate most nearly to the sense of time that we experience in our own lives: whether from hour to hour, as in an account of a battle, or from day to day, as in an account of a political crisis, or over a natural life-span, as in a biography. The great exponents of re-creative history have always been masters of dramatic and vividly evocative narrative. To mark the bicentenary of the French Revolution Simon Schama published an accomplished narrative history called Citizens (1989), appropriately subtitled A Chronicle of the French Revolution. Other historians have represented the great upheavals of the past by means of multiple narratives, seeing great events through the experience of many individuals. This technique is employed by Diane Purkiss in her account of the English Civil War, and by Orlando Figes in his history of the Russian Revolution: ‘a human event of complicated individual tragedies’, as he puts it.5 In works of this kind we can see the virtues of historical narrative fully exemplified: exact chronology, the role of chance and contingency, the play of irony, and perhaps most of all the true complexity of events in which the participants so often foundered.

西蒙·沙玛(1945年—)

Simon Schama (1945–)

作为剑桥历史学家 JH Plumb 的学生,沙玛在十七、十八世纪撰写了关于荷兰的广受赞誉的作品,之后凭借《公民》一书引起公众关注。该书是为纪念法国大革命两百周年而撰写的,是一部通俗易懂但又颇具批判性的叙事作品。沙玛后来为 BBC 电视台主持了广受欢迎的《英国史》节目。

A pupil of the Cambridge historian J.H. Plumb, Schama wrote acclaimed works on the Netherlands in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries before coming to general attention with Citizens, a highly readable but critical narrative account of the French Revolution written for the bicentennial celebrations in 1989. Schama went on to present a hugely popular History of Britain for BBC Television.

III

历史原因和后果

Historical causes and consequences

当然,历史学家从事的工作远不止于复原历史。将过去的事件视为孤立且任意的,这完全符合历史学家的目标,但历史学家实际上并非如此。历史写作基于这样的前提:特定的事件与之前发生的事情、其他领域的同时期发展以及之后发生的事情息息相关;简而言之,它们被视为历史进程的一部分。那些事后看来似乎是连续序列中各个阶段的事件,在历史学家眼中具有特殊的意义。“发生了什么?”和“在某个特定时期,情况如何?”这些问题是“为什么会发生?”和“其结果是什么?”这两个问题的前提——即便并非必要。可以说,基于这些优先顺序的历史写作始于启蒙运动时期的“哲学”历史学家。十九世纪,伟大的历史社会学家——托克维尔、马克思和韦伯——进一步推动了这一领域的发展,他们试图解释当时经济和政治变革的起源。因果关系问题一直是近代许多最激烈的历史争论的核心。

But the historian is of course engaged in very much more than an exercise in resurrection. It would be entirely consistent with this objective to treat events in the past as isolated and arbitrary, but the historian does not in fact treat them in this way. Historical writing is based on the presupposition that particular events are connected with what happened before, with contemporary developments in other fields, and with what came afterwards; they are conceived, in short, as part of a historical process. Those events which in retrospect appear to have been phases in a continuing sequence are deemed specially significant by the historian. The questions ‘What happened?’ and ‘What were conditions like at such-and-such a time?’ are preliminary – if indispensable – to asking ‘Why did it happen?’ and ‘What were its results?’ Historical writing based on these priorities may be said to have begun with the ‘philosophic’ historians of the Enlightenment. During the nineteenth century it drew further impetus from the great historical sociologists – de Tocqueville, Marx and Weber – who sought to explain the origins of the economic and political transformations of their own day. Questions of cause and consequence have been at the heart of many of the most heated historical controversies in recent times.

韦伯(1864–1920)

Weber (1864–1920)

马克斯·韦伯,德国政治哲学家。虽然韦伯和马克思一样强调阶级在决定社会发展中的重要性,但他对社会阶级的构成提出了更为复杂和精辟的分析。他尤其强调社会地位的重要性,社会地位可能并不等同于严格的阶级范畴,并且会随着时间而变化。

Max Weber, German political philosopher. Although, like Marx, Weber stressed the importance of class in determining the development of society, he put forward a much more complex and sophisticated analysis of what social class actually consists of. In particular he stressed the importance of social status, which might not equate to strict class categories and can change over time.

问“为什么?”可能仅仅意味着询问某人为何做出某个特定决定。历史学家一直密切关注动机的研究,这既是因为传记在历史研究中的传统重要地位,也是因为伟人的动机至少部分地反映在他们的遗稿中。外交史尤其倾向于探讨大臣和外交官的意图和策略。但即便在外交史这一特定领域,“为什么?”这个问题也远比表面看起来复杂。无论意图的陈述多么真诚和连贯,它们都不太可能揭示全部真相。每一种文化和每一个社会群体都有其不言而喻的假设——那些“不言而喻”的准则和价值观,却可能深刻地影响着人们的行为。为了考虑到这一层面,历史学家必须精通所研究时期的知识和文化背景,并能迅速从文献中捕捉到反映这一背景的蛛丝马迹。例如,关于第一次世界大战的起源,詹姆斯·乔尔指出,对革命的病态恐惧和当时流行的适者生存理论是欧洲政治思想的潜在特征;他还指出,在诸如1914年7月这样的危机时刻,决策者最有可能依赖于他们未曾言明的假设,在极度恐慌中采取行动,而无暇对自身处境进行深思熟虑的评估。 6

Asking the question ‘Why?’ may simply mean asking why an individual took a particular decision. Historians have always given close attention to the study of motive, both because of the traditional prominence of biography in historical studies and because the motives of the great are at least partially reflected in their surviving papers. Diplomatic history is particularly prone to dwell on the intentions and tactics of ministers and diplomats. But even in this limited setting, the question ‘Why?’ is less simple than it looks. However honest and coherent statements of intention may be, they are unlikely to tell the whole story. Every culture and every social grouping has its unspoken assumptions – those nostrums and values that ‘go without saying’ and yet may deeply affect behaviour. In order to take account of this dimension, the historian must be well versed in the intellectual and cultural context of the period studied, and quick to pick up tell-tale hints of this context in the documents. With regard to the origins of the First World War, for instance, James Joll has called attention to the morbid fear of revolution and the fashionable doctrine of the survival of the fittest as underlying features of the European political mind; and he points out that in moments of crisis such as July 1914 policy-makers were most likely to fall back on their unspoken assumptions, acting in too great a panic to make a considered appraisal of their predicament.6

超越人类动机:潜在原因,长期后果

Beyond human motivation: latent causes, long-term consequences

然而,历史上真正重要的问题并非取决于个人的行为,而是关乎重大事件和集体转型,而这些事件和转型绝非人类意图的总和所能解释的。这是因为,在公开宣称的意图和有意识(即便未言明)的关注点之下,隐藏着同时代人仅略有察觉的潜在历史进程,例如人口结构、经济结构或深层价值观的变迁。 7维多利亚时代的人们将19世纪30年代废除奴隶制视为人道主义的重大胜利,威廉·威尔伯福斯等人的奔走呼号便是明证。回望过去,我们可以看到,1833年的立法也与加勒比奴隶经济的衰落以及英国自身向工业化社会的转型密切相关。 8由于历史学家能够考察一个社会随时间推移而发生的演变,他们得以记录这些因素的影响。但历史的参与者本身不可能完全掌握他们所处的所有结构性制约因素。

However, the really significant questions in history do not turn on the conduct of individuals but concern major events and collective transitions that cannot possibly be explained by the sum total of human intentions. This is because underneath the manifest history of stated intention and conscious (if unspoken) preoccupation there lies a latent history of processes that contemporaries were only dimly aware of, such as changes in demography, economic structure or deep values.7 The Victorians saw in the abolition of slavery in the 1830s a famous victory for humanitarianism, as exemplified in the campaigning zeal of men such as William Wilberforce. In retrospect we can see how the legislation of 1833 was also brought about by the declining fortunes of the Caribbean slave economy and the shift towards an industrialized society in Britain itself.8 Because historians can look at a society in motion through time, they can register the influence of such factors. But the historical actors themselves could not possibly have a full grasp of all the structural constraints under which they were operating.

他们也无法预料自己行为的后果。如同原因一样,后果也不能简单地从当事人的既定动机中推断出来,原因很简单:潜在的或结构性的因素常常横亘在意图和结果之间。正如E.H.卡尔所指出的,我们对历史事实的理解必须足够宽泛,以至于能够涵盖“那些由个人行为产生的社会力量,这些力量往往导致与个人预期相悖,有时甚至完全相反的结果”。9回到奴隶制问题,英国废奴主义者的意图究竟是什么?其目的当然是赋予奴隶自由并改善他们的物质条件。但实际改善的程度在加勒比海各地差异巨大,这是人道主义者们始料未及的。此外,还出现了一些完全超出他们预期范围的后果,特别是废奴运动对其他道德运动(例如禁酒和社会纯洁运动)宣传技巧的影响。 10 从后世的角度来看,后果在某种意义上比原因重要,因为它们通常决定了我们赋予特定事件的重要性。例如,关于英国革命原因的著述远多于关于其后果的著述,这是一个有趣的现象:它建立新政治文化或为更高效的资本主义形式铺平道路的程度,远不如清教主义的兴起或斯图亚特王朝早期的金融危机那样广为人知。

Nor could they anticipate the outcome of their actions. Like causes, consequences cannot simply be read off from the stated motives of the protagonists, for the simple reason that latent or structural factors so often come between intention and outcome. As E.H. Carr pointed out, our notion of the facts of history must be broad enough to include ‘the social forces which produce from the actions of individuals results often at variance with, and sometimes opposite to, the results which they themselves intended’.9 To revert to the issue of slavery, the intention of British abolitionists was certainly to confer liberty on the slaves and to improve their material conditions. But the extent of the improvement in practice varied greatly from one part of the Caribbean to another, in ways that the humanitarians had not foreseen. Moreover, other consequences unfolded that lay beyond their terms of reference altogether, notably the impact of the anti-slavery crusade on the propaganda techniques of other moral campaigns, such as those for temperance and social purity.10 There is a sense in which, from the viewpoint of posterity, consequences are more significant than causes, since they usually determine the importance we accord to a given event. It is a curious fact that vastly more has been written on the causes of the English Revolution, for instance, than on its consequences: the extent to which it established a new political culture, or paved the way for more efficient forms of capitalism, is far less widely known than, say, the rise of Puritanism or the financial crises of the early Stuart monarchy.

清教主义

Puritanism

清教主义是十七世纪新教的一种激进形式,旨在“净化”英国国教,去除其“天主教”特征。在英国革命战争期间,清教主义也与政治激进主义联系在一起。

A radical form of seventeenth-century Protestantism which sought to ‘purify’ the Church of England of its ‘Catholic’ features. Puritanism was also associated with political radicalism during the English Civil Wars.

多层分析

Multi-layered analysis

对因果关系的处理,对写作技巧的要求与历史重现不相上下,但二者的难度却截然不同。要传达鲜活的亲身经历,需要多层次的精妙叙事和引人入胜的描写。而要对过往事件做出恰当的解释,则需要复杂的分析能力。尤其需要注意的是,由于人类经验的不同领域不断相互交织,因果关系总是多元且多层次的。至少,我们需要区分背景原因和直接原因:前者作用于长期,可以说将事件置于历史的议程之上;后者则直接导致结果的产生,其结果往往是任何人都无法预料的独特形式。劳伦斯·斯通就提供了一个更为精妙的范例,有效地运用了这一模型。在他长达百页的论文《英国革命的起因》中,他依次考察了1629年之前一个世纪形成的“先决条件”、1629-1639年间的“促成因素”以及1640-1642年间的“触发因素”,从而揭示了清教主义的传播和王室未能获得专制统治手段等长期因素与个人性格和偶然事件之间的相互作用。 11

The treatment of cause and consequence makes just as heavy demands on the skill of the writer as historical re-creation does, but of a rather different kind. To convey the immediacy of lived experience calls for intricate narrative and evocative description on several different levels. To approximate to an adequate explanation of past events, on the other hand, requires analytical complexity. Causation in particular is always multiple and many-layered, owing to the manner in which different areas of human experience constantly obtrude on one another. At the very least, some distinction needs to be made between background causes and direct causes: the former operate over the long term and place the event in question on the agenda of history, so to speak; the latter put the outcome into effect, often in a distinctive shape that no one could have foreseen. Lawrence Stone has provided an effective example of a slightly more sophisticated version of this model. In his hundred-page essay, ‘The causes of the English Revolution’, he considers in turn the ‘preconditions’ that came into being in the century before 1629, the ‘precipitants’ (1629–39) and the ‘triggers’ (1640–2), and thus shows the interaction of long-term factors, such as the spread of Puritanism and the Crown’s failure to acquire the instruments of autocracy, with the role of individual personalities and fortuitous events.11

理解历史解释任务的另一种方式是将过去任何特定的历史节点视为两个平面相交的领域。一个平面是垂直的(或历时性的),它包含该活动早期表现形式的时间序列:以废除奴隶制为例,这个平面体现在1833年之前长达五十年的废奴运动,以及同期种植园利润的涨落。另一个平面是水平的(或共时性的):也就是说,当代世界截然不同的特征对当前事件的影响。在本例中,这些特征可能包括1830年前后改革的政治势头和政治经济学的新理论。卡尔·肖尔斯克将历史学家比作织布工,其技艺在于用时间序列的经线和当代性的纬线织就一张坚实的解释之网。 12

Another way of understanding the task of historical explanation is to see any given conjuncture in the past as lying in a field where two planes intersect. One plane is vertical (or diachronic), comprising a sequence through time of earlier manifestations of this activity: in the case of the abolition of slavery this plane would be represented by the fifty years of campaigning for abolition before 1833, and by the ebb and flow of plantation profits over the same period. The other plane is the horizontal (or synchronic): that is, the impinging of quite different features of the contemporary world on the matter in hand. In the present example these might include the political momentum for reform around 1830 and the new nostrums of political economy. Carl Schorske likens the historian to a weaver whose craft is to produce a strong fabric of interpretation out of the warp of sequence and the woof of contemporaneity.12

秘方

nostrum

一个想法,尤其是一个被大力宣传为解决问题的办法的想法。

An idea, particularly one promoted zealously as a remedy for a problem.

历史叙事的局限性

The limitations of historical narrative

这种分析上的复杂性意味着叙事极不可能成为历史解释的最佳载体。它当然曾经是。兰克和十九世纪伟大的学院派历史学家们都采用这种典型的写作模式,他们实际上感兴趣的远不止“事情的本来面目”。英国最畅销(也最易读)的专业历史学家之一——A.J.P.泰勒——几乎只写过这类作品。但这种传统的文学技巧实际上对任何系统性的历史解释都造成了严重的限制。将事件按正确的时间顺序排列并不能解决它们之间的关系。正如托尼所说:

This analytical complexity means that narrative is most unlikely to be the best vehicle for historical explanation. It was certainly the characteristic mode of Ranke and the great academic historians of the nineteenth century, who in practice were interested in much more than ‘how things actually were’. And one of the most widely read (and readable) professional historians in Britain – A.J.P. Taylor – hardly wrote anything else. But this traditional literary technique in fact imposes severe limitations on any systematic attempt at historical explanation. The placing of events in their correct temporal sequence does not settle the relationship between them. As Tawney put it:

A.J.P.泰勒(1906–1990)凭借其为大众媒体撰写的历史文章和电视讲座而广为人知。他的受欢迎程度以及刻意挑衅性的分析激怒了历史学家,因为他们并不认同他将叙事史作为历史解释形式的观点。(Topfoto/Topham/Picturepoint)

A.J.P. Taylor (1906–90) became a well-known figure through his historical writings for the popular press and his television lectures. His popularity and deliberately provocative analysis infuriated historians, who did not share his attachment to narrative history as a format for historical explanation. (Topfoto/Topham/Picturepoint)

时间以及事件发生的先后顺序固然是线索,但仅此而已;历史学家的工作之一,就是用更重要的关联来取代时间顺序上的关联。13

Time, and the order of occurrences in time, is a clue, but no more; part of the historian’s business is to substitute more significant connections for those of chronology.13

问题有两方面:首先,叙事可能会把读者引入死胡同。B发生在A之后并不意味着A导致了B,但叙事的流畅性很容易给人造成这种错觉。(逻辑学家称之为“后此谬误”。)其次,也是更重要的一点,叙事对原因的处理方式进行了极大的简化。对特定事件的历史理解是通过不断扩充原因清单,同时尝试将它们排列成某种顺序来实现的。叙事完全与这种探究模式背道而驰。它一次最多只能处理两三个线索,因此只有少数几个原因或结果会显现出来。而且,这些原因或结果不太可能是最重要的,因为它们与日常事件的顺序相关,而不是与长期的结构性因素相关。这会对我们理解历史上的重大结构性变革产生显著的局限性。沙玛在反思他的著作《公民》时承认:

The problem is twofold: first, narrative can take the reader up a blind alley. Because B came after A does not mean that A caused B, but the flow of the narrative may easily convey the impression that it did. (Logicians call this the post hoc propter hoc fallacy.) Second, and much more importantly, narrative imposes a drastic simplification on the treatment of cause. The historical understanding of a particular occurrence proceeds by enlarging the inventory of causes, while at the same time trying to place them in some sort of pecking order. Narrative is entirely inimical to this pattern of enquiry. It can keep no more than two or three threads going at once, so that only a few causes or results will be made apparent. Moreover, these are not likely to be the most significant ones, being associated with the sequence of day-to-day events rather than long-term structural factors. That can have a markedly impoverishing effect on our understanding of major structural changes in history. Reflecting on his book Citizens, Schama acknowledged,

事后

post hoc propter hoc

(拉丁语)字面意思是“在此之后,因此,由于此”。换句话说,这是一种错误的假设,即因为两个事件依次发生,所以它们之间必然存在因果关系。

(Latin) Literally ‘after this therefore because of this’. In other words the false assumption that because two events happen in sequence there must necessarily be a causal connection between them.

法国大革命带来的剧烈社会变革似乎不再那么清晰,甚至根本就不明显……这场革命似乎也不再符合由社会变革不可阻挡的力量预先决定的宏大历史蓝图。相反,它似乎是偶然事件和不可预见的情况的结果。14

The drastic social changes imputed to the [French] Revolution seem less clear-cut or actually not apparent at all … Nor does the Revolution seem any longer to conform to a grand historical design, preordained by inexorable forces of social change. Instead it seems a thing of contingencies and unforeseen circumstances.14

叙事逻辑在战争史中同样清晰可见。泰勒在论述第一次世界大战时,采取了一种典型的极端观点。他在1969年写道:“这已成为一种时尚。”

The logic of narrative is no less clear in the history of war. Writing about the First World War, Taylor took a characteristically extreme view. ‘It is the fashion nowadays’, he wrote in 1969,

人们总是试图探寻重大事件背后的深层原因。但或许1914年爆发的战争并没有什么深层原因。在过去的三十年里,国际外交、权力平衡、联盟以及武装力量的积累带来了和平。然而,局势突然逆转,那些曾经促成长期和平的力量如今却引发了一场大战。这就像一个驾驶技术娴熟、三十年来一直避免事故的司机,有一天却因为疏忽而发生车祸。1914年7月,事情出了差错。唯一合理的解释是,事情的发生自有其原因。15

to seek profound causes for great events. But perhaps the war which broke out in 1914 had no profound causes. For thirty years past, international diplomacy, the balance of power, the alliances, and the accumulation of armed might produced peace. Suddenly the situation was turned round, and the very forces which had produced the long peace now produced a great war. In much the same way, a motorist who for thirty years has been doing the right thing to avoid accidents makes a mistake one day and has a crash. In July 1914 things went wrong. The only safe explanation is that things happen because they happen.15

泰勒提出所谓的极简主义立场,无疑是意在引发争议,但他的观点比人们想象的更为普遍。任何试图用叙事手法概括历史上重大变革的尝试都离不开这种观点。例如, C·V·韦奇伍德和西蒙·沙玛都对促使英法革命的结构性因素不太感兴趣;他们更想强调人的能动性和事件的变迁。他们都反对马克思主义的革命观,而传统的叙事方式恰好契合了他们在动笔之前就已经形成的视角。我们必须认识到,叙事的选择本质上是一种阐释行为,而非单纯的讲故事。

In putting forward what might be termed the minimalist position, Taylor doubtless intended to provoke, but his outlook is more prevalent than one might suppose. It is implicated in any attempt to encompass any of the great transformations in history by narrative means. Neither C.V. Wedgwood nor Simon Schama, for instance, was much interested in the structural factors predisposing England or France to revolution; they wanted to place the role of human agency and the flux of events in the foreground. Both of them were reacting against the Marxist approach to revolution, and traditional narrative suited a perspective that was fully formed before they embarked on their books. The choice of narrative must be recognized for what it is: an interpretative act, rather than an innocent attempt at story-telling.

CV Wedgwood(1910–97)

C.V. Wedgwood (1910–97)

维罗妮卡·韦奇伍德女爵士是一位颇受欢迎的英国革命史学家。她的《国王的和平》《国王的战争》是生动的叙述,其视角虽然并非总是赞同查理一世国王,但却带有同情色彩。

Dame Veronica Wedgwood, a popular historian of the English Civil Wars. Her The King’s Peace and The King’s War are vivid narratives, written from a viewpoint sympathetic to, if not always condoning, King Charles I.

叙事的局限性在制度和经济变革中体现得尤为明显,因为在这些领域可能不存在可辨识的主角,他们的行动和思考也无法被当作故事来讲述。至今无人成功地以叙事形式呈现工业革命的起因。在历史的“无声变革”中,这些问题尤为突出——这些变革指的是精神和社会经验的渐进式转变,它们在事件表面仅以极其隐晦的方式体现出来。随着20世纪历史研究的范围扩大,涵盖了这些主题,叙事对历史写作的影响力也随之减弱。很少有比年鉴学派对“事件史”(l'histoire événementielle)的批判更具说服力的思想呼声。

The limitations of narrative apply still more to institutional and economic change, where there may be no identifiable protagonists whose actions and reflections can be treated as a story. No one has succeeded in representing the causes of the Industrial Revolution in narrative form. The problems are clearest of all in the case of the ‘silent changes’ in history16 – those gradual transformations in mental and social experience which were reflected on the surface of events in only the most oblique manner. As the scope of historical studies has broadened in the twentieth century to include these topics, so the hold of narrative on historical writing has weakened. Few intellectual rallying cries have proved more effective than the attack by the Annales school on l’histoire événementielle.

事件史

l’histoire événementielle

(法语)以事件为导向的历史,而非分析或描述的历史。

(French) Events-led, as opposed to analytical or descriptive, history.

分析史学的优势与劣势

The strengths and weaknesses of analytical history

其结果是,如今的历史写作比一百年前更具分析性。在历史分析中,事件的主要轮廓往往被视为理所当然;而分析的重点在于这些事件的意义以及它们彼此之间的关系。历史中因果关系的多重性要求我们暂停叙述,依次权衡每个相关因素,同时又不忽视它们之间的联系,以及每个因素的构成随时间推移而发生变化的可能性。

The result is that historical writing is now very much more analytical than it was a hundred years ago. In historical analysis the main outline of events tends to be taken for granted; what is at issue is their significance and their relationship with each other. The multiple nature of causation in history demands that the narrative be suspended and that each of the relevant factors be weighed in turn, without losing sight of their connectedness and the likelihood that the configuration of each factor shifted over time.

这当然不是分析性写作的唯一功能。分析可以阐明同时发生的事件和过程之间的关联性,尤其能够揭示某个机构或特定历史领域的运作机制。在英国史学界,纳米尔的《乔治三世登基时的政治结构》(1929)堪称经典之作,该书由一系列分析性文章组成,探讨了1760年前后影响下议院组成和运作的各种因素。这类结构性研究在社会史和经济史领域最为普遍,因为要公正地评估特定变革的意义,就必须对社会或经济体系的整体性有一定的把握。此外,还需要对证据本身进行批判性评估,这可能需要讨论文本的真实性和事实推断的有效性,以及权衡各种不同解释的利弊。有人评价兰克,说他对当代记录的细致评估很少会影响他那庄严的叙述风格。如今,很少有历史学家能像他那样保持沉默。但正是在处理历史中那些重大的解释性问题时,分析的作用才得以充分发挥。随着历史写作越来越注重解决问题,对分析的重视程度也随之提高,这一点只需翻阅任何一份学术期刊便可知晓。

This is certainly not the only function of analytical writing. Analysis can serve to elucidate the connectedness of events and processes occurring at the same time, and especially to lay bare the workings of an institution or a specific area of historical experience. In British historiography the classic instance is Namier’s Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (1929), a sequence of analytical essays on the various influences that determined the composition and working of the House of Commons around 1760. Structural studies of this kind are most prevalent in social and economic history, where some grasp of the totality of the social or economic system is required if the significance of particular changes is to be fairly assessed. Then there is the critical evaluation of the evidence itself, which may require a discussion about textual authenticity and the validity of factual inference, as well as a weighing up of the pros and cons of alternative interpretations. It has been said of Ranke that his careful evaluation of contemporary records was seldom allowed to ruffle the surface of his stately narrative;17 few historians would be allowed to get away with that kind of reticence today. But it is in the handling of the big explanatory issues in history that analysis most comes into its own. As historical writing becomes more geared to problem-solving, so the emphasis on analysis has increased, as a glance at any of the academic journals will show.

阐发

elucidate

解释一些复杂的事物。

To explain something complex.

然而,这并不意味着叙事就完全被忽视。因为纯粹的分析性写作也会带来自身的问题。它在提升理性清晰度的同时,却失去了历史的即时性。历史分析不可避免地带有某种静态性,正如E.P. Thompson广为引用的比喻,仿佛时间机器被暂停,以便更深入地检查其内部构造。 18纳米尔对十八世纪政治的研究正是因此而受到批评。 19此外,在分析层面看似令人信服的解释,在面对瞬息万变的事件时,可能显得不切实际。事实上,历史学家需要以一种既能体现显性又能体现隐性、既能反映深层力量又能反映表面事件的方式来写作。而这在实践中需要一种灵活的视角。分析性和叙述性两种模式并存:有时交替出现,有时则完全融合于全文。事实上,这正是当今大多数学术历史写作的写作方式。

However, this does not mean that narrative is completely at a discount. For undiluted analytical writing raises its own problems. What it gains in intellectual clarity, it loses in historical immediacy. There is an inescapably static quality about historical analysis as if, in E.P. Thompson’s much-cited metaphor, the time machine has been stopped in order to allow a more searching inspection of the engine room.18 Namier’s studies of eighteenth-century politics lay themselves open to criticism for this very reason.19 Furthermore, explanations that seem convincing at an analytical level may prove unworkable when measured against the flux of events. The truth is that historians need to write in ways that do justice to both the manifest and the latent, both profound forces and surface events. And in practice this requires a flexible use of both analytical and narrative modes: sometimes in alternating sections, sometimes more completely fused throughout the text. This in fact is the way in which most academic historical writing is carried out today.

叙事与社会历史学家

Narrative and the social historian

尽管分析具有极强的学术吸引力,但缺乏叙事的历史根本无法成立。叙事赋予原本杂乱无章、缺乏连贯性的历史以形态和方向,从而带来丹尼尔·斯诺曼所说的“完结的慰藉”。 20因此,毫不奇怪,当今的历史学家正在学习运用叙事的新方法。十九世纪,叙事常常被不加思考地视为历史阐述的模式,而如今,它已成为精通文学研究的学者们批判性审视的对象。例如,海登·怀特强调了每位运用叙事的历史学家所做的修辞选择,并指出了他们作品中一些主要的修辞策略(见第198-199页)。 21与以往相比,历史学家在使用叙事时往往更加自觉和批判。尤其值得一提的是,叙事与政治事件的传统关联如今已不再那么明显。社会史学家们如今的做法与上一代人截然相反,他们更倾向于运用叙事来传达他们抽象分析的社会结构、生命周期和文化价值观在现实生活中是如何被人们体验的。但他们不再构建一个关于整个社会的叙事,而是创作一些具有代表性或说明性的故事,或许称之为“微叙事”最为贴切。理查德·J·埃文斯(Richard J. Evans)撰写了一部关于19世纪德国犯罪与惩罚的研究著作,其中每一章都以一个独立的故事作为引子,引出接下来的主题;他将这本书命名为《德国地下世界的故事》(Tales from the German Underworld,1998),可谓名副其实。在这一新体裁的经典之作中,娜塔莉·泽蒙·戴维斯(Natalie Zemon Davis)讲述了一个发生在16世纪50年代的法国巴斯克地区的农民的故事:他冒充一位被遗弃妻子的丈夫生活了三年,直到真正的丈夫出现,冒名顶替者被揭穿并处决。《马丁·盖尔归来》(1983)是一个引人入胜的故事,也被改编成了电影。但对戴维斯来说,这个案件“将我们带入农民情感和抱负的隐秘世界”,例如,它揭示了人们是否“像重视财产一样重视真相”。23劳伦斯·斯通的观点有些操之过急。1979年有人提出“叙事复兴”的概念,但过去三十年已经证实,历史学家们确实正在为最传统的历史写作形式注入新的活力。24

For all the intellectual appeal of analysis, history without narrative is a non-starter. It is narrative that gives shape and direction to what would otherwise be a formless incoherent mess, thus allowing what Daniel Snowman calls ‘the comfort of closure’.20 Not surprisingly, then, today’s historians are learning new ways of deploying narrative. Whereas in the nineteenth century it was often treated, without much reflection, as the mode of historical exposition, narrative is now the subject of critical scrutiny by scholars au fait with literary studies. Hayden White, for example, has emphasized the rhetorical choices made by every historian who resorts to narrative, and has identified some of the principal rhetorical stratagems found in their work (see pp. 198–99).21 Historians tend to be much more self-conscious and critical in their use of narrative than they used to be. In particular, the traditional association with political events is now much less evident. Social historians, in a reversal of their practice a generation ago, now favour narrative as a means of conveying how the social structures, life cycles and cultural values that they analyse in abstract terms were experienced by actual people. But instead of constructing a narrative for society as a whole, they compose exemplary or illustrative stories, perhaps best termed ‘micronarratives’.22 Richard J. Evans has written a study of crime and punishment in nineteenth-century Germany in which each chapter begins with an individual story as a way into the theme that follows; appropriately he calls his book Tales from the German Underworld (1998). In a classic of this new genre, Natalie Zemon Davis recounts the tale of a peasant in the French Basque country who lived as the husband of an abandoned wife for three years during the 1550s, until the real husband turned up and the impostor was exposed and executed. The Return of Martin Guerre (1983) is an absorbing story, also made into a film, but for Davis the case ‘leads us into the hidden world of peasant sentiment and aspiration’, shedding light for example on whether people ‘cared as much about truth as about property’.23 Lawrence Stone was somewhat premature when he spoke in 1979 of a ‘revival of narrative’, but the last three decades have confirmed that historians are indeed breathing new life into the most traditional form of historical writing.24

海登·怀特(1928年—)

Hayden White (1928–)

美国文学理论家。他对建构叙事的虚假性的看法很大程度上建立在雅克·德里达(1930-2004)和解构主义学派的著作之上,该学派认为文本和语言本身充满了作者及其文化背景的隐藏假设和偏见。

American literary theorist. His views on the artificiality of constructed narrative build heavily on the work of Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) and the deconstructionist school, which held that text and language itself is replete with the hidden assumptions and prejudices of the author and of his or her cultural background.

修辞

rhetorical

修辞是运用言语或写作来达到说服目的的艺术。它不仅依赖于论证本身的质量,还依赖于巧妙运用修辞手法,例如“反问句”(其答案显而易见,无需赘述)。

Rhetoric is the art of speaking or writing in order to persuade. It relies on skilful use of devices, such as ‘rhetorical questions’ (whose answers are deemed so obvious that they do not need to be stated), at least as much as on the actual qualities of the argument itself.

第四

IV

研究论文写作:学术专著

Writing up research: the academic monograph

对于从事历史研究的学者而言,选择研究形式的问题通常是在专著写作中首次遇到的——也就是说,他们需要撰写一篇原创研究论文,最初可能是攻读高等学位时的论文,之后再以书籍或学术期刊文章的形式发表。在这种写作形式中,证据的复杂性往往会在正文中展现出来,而文中提出的论点则通过详尽的脚注引用相关文献来加以验证。许多专著都非常专业,除了同行专家之外,几乎无人能够理解。而且,由于专著的本质在于它基于一手而非二手资料,因此其研究范围往往非常有限。对于一位年轻学者而言,这种情况尤为突出,因为他需要展示三四年的博士研究成果。尽管从技术层面来说,这类作品“对知识做出了原创性贡献”(符合高等学位要求),但它们的意义往往并不重大。为了获得学术职位,研究人员往往需要在几年内完成一篇合格的论文,这种压力常常导致他们选择保守的做法,专注于研究一些从未被研究过的、定义明确的史料——或者至少,他们研究这些史料时并未考虑过相同的历史问题。吕西安·费弗尔曾尖锐地指出,大多数历史著作的作者“仅仅是为了表明他们了解并尊重自己行业的规则”。 25这无疑是历史学专业化不可避免的后果。与此同时,研究生研究也时常涌现出令人瞩目的成果:迈克尔·安德森的《十九世纪兰开夏郡的家庭结构》一书,尽管出版于近四十年前,至今仍被视为研究工人阶级人口统计信息的重要来源。部分原因是,在1971年,家庭史还是一个新兴领域。在现有研究成果匮乏的领域,初级历史学家更有可能做出重大贡献。至少,博士学位……提供研究方法和专著写作方面的培训,正是通过这些方法,才扩展了经过适当验证的历史知识库。

These problems of choice of form are usually confronted for the first time by the practising historian in the form of the monograph – that is, the writing up of a piece of original research, initially as a thesis for a higher degree and then as a book or an article in one of the learned journals. In this kind of writing the complexities of the evidence are likely to be displayed in the text, and the statements made there validated by meticulous footnote references to the appropriate documents. Many monographs are highly technical and are hardly accessible to anyone but fellow specialists. And, since the essence of the monograph is that it is based on primary rather than secondary sources, its scope is likely to be very restricted. This is particularly so in the case of a young scholar presenting the results of three or four years’ Ph.D. research. Although in a technical sense such works are ‘an original contribution to knowledge’ (as required under the regulations for higher degrees), their significance is often slight. The pressure to complete an acceptable thesis within a few years in order to secure an academic job often causes the researcher to play safe by focusing on a well-defined body of sources never previously studied – or at any rate not with the same historical problem in mind. Lucien Febvre caustically observed the tendency for most historical works to be written by people who ‘simply set out to show that they know and respect the rules of their profession’.25 That is doubtless an unavoidable consequence of the professionalization of history. At the same time, arresting results do from time to time emerge from postgraduate research: Michael Anderson’s Family Structure in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire is still regarded as an important source of demographic information on the working class, even though it was published nearly forty years ago. Part of the explanation is that in 1971 the history of the family was a new field. The apprentice historian stands a much better chance of making a major contribution where existing interpretations are thin on the ground. At the very least, the Ph.D. provides a training in the conduct of research and the writing of monographs, and it is by these means that the stock of properly validated historical knowledge is extended.

从更广阔的视角来看

Taking the broader view

然而,如果历史学家仅仅局限于他们已掌握一手资料的主题,那么历史知识将会支离破碎,最终失去意义。理解过去意味着解释那些随着时间推移而显得意义重大,且其定义必然比任何研究者仅凭自身努力所能涵盖的范围更为广泛的事件和进程:例如,英国革命的起源而非劳德大主教的政策,工业革命的社会后果而非西约克郡手工织布工的衰落,瓜分非洲的浪潮而非法绍达危机。显而易见,对如此复杂主题的理解并非仅仅依靠积累详尽的研究就能达成。正如马克·布洛赫所言:“显微镜是绝妙的研究工具;但一堆显微镜载玻片并不能构成一件艺术品。” 26当历史学家跳出固有思维,对这些主题进行宏观审视时,他们会面临更为棘手的阐释难题——如何将众多线索整合为一个连贯的叙述,如何判断某个因素的重要性。即便他们毕生致力于相关原始资料的研究,或许能够对其他学者的研究成果有所甄别,但他们仍然不得不依赖他人的信任来开展大部分工作。

Yet if historians confined their writings to those topics for which they have mastered the primary sources, historical knowledge would be so fragmented as to be meaningless. Making sense of the past means explaining those events and processes that appear significant with the passage of time and that are inevitably defined in terms which are broader than any researcher can encompass by his or her own unaided efforts: the origins of the English Civil War rather than the policies of Archbishop Laud, the social consequences of the Industrial Revolution rather than the decline of the handloom weavers of the West Riding, the Scramble for Africa rather than the Fashoda Crisis. It must be obvious that an understanding of topics of this complexity is not attained by the mere accumulation of detailed researches. In Marc Bloch’s words, ‘The microscope is a marvellous instrument for research; but a heap of microscopic slides does not constitute a work of art’.26 When historians step back to take an overview of one of these topics, they face much more acute problems of interpretation – of combining many strands into a coherent account, of determining the weight of this factor or that. And even after a lifetime of research in the relevant primary sources, which may allow them to be discriminating in the use they make of other scholars, they will still have to take much of their work on trust.

劳德大主教(1573–1645)

Archbishop Laud (1573–1645)

威廉·劳德,查理一世国王时期的坎特伯雷大主教。劳德的任命颇具争议,人们怀疑他想将天主教习俗重新引入英国国教,甚至更具争议的是,他还想将其引入苏格兰教会。苏格兰民众对劳德宗教政策的抵制,最终引发了演变为英国革命的危机。劳德于1641年被捕并遭到弹劾,最终被议会下令处决。

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury under King Charles I. Laud was a controversial choice, suspected of wanting to reintroduce Catholic practices into the Church of England and, even more controversially, into the Scottish Kirk. Scottish resistance to Laud’s religious policies precipitated the crisis that developed into the English Civil War. Laud was arrested and impeached in 1641, and finally executed by order of Parliament.

法绍达危机

Fashoda Crisis

1898年,英国和法国因争夺苏丹南部控制权而爆发外交危机,一度险些将两国推向战争边缘。一支征服苏丹北部的英国军事远征军遭遇了一支规模小得多的法国探险队,后者试图将苏丹纳入法国版图,但最终未能成功。

A diplomatic crisis between Britain and France in 1898 over control of the southern Sudan, which for a time threatened to push the two countries into war. A British military expedition which had conquered the northern Sudan encountered a much smaller French exploratory mission, which tried unsuccessfully to claim the country for France.

历史的宏大篇章

The grand sweep of history

当历史学家进一步远离其第一手研究的根基,试图对整个时代进行全面考察时,这些困难会更加复杂。如果说专著是二手资料,那么这种考察就可以恰当地被描述为“三手”资料,因为作者不可避免地要基于对标准二手权威的解读,对某些主题做出断言。由此必然会招致那些其研究领域被涉足的专家的吹毛求疵式批评。这类作品更容易受到时代潮流的影响,而他们的评判也更容易过时。与狭隘的专著相比,综合性著作更容易被新的研究成果所超越。令人遗憾的是,许多此类著作并非真正的综合性著作,而是为了方便查阅而以僵化、机械的方式总结现有知识的教科书,这进一步损害了其学术地位。一些历史学家意识到,评估原始资料最能令人信服地展现他们的专业知识,因此本能地认为这项工作不适合“真正的学者”。 27另一些历史学家则试图通过参与合作史学著作来满足对概览性著作的需求。剑桥近代史便是此类著作的雏形,该书于1896年在阿克顿勋爵的指导下编纂完成,共十二卷,涵盖了自十五世纪中叶以来的欧洲历史,每卷均由权威专家撰写的国家和专题章节组成。此后,合作史学著作如雨后春笋般涌现。然而,尽管这些汇编著作作为专业知识的简明表述具有不可估量的价值,但它们却回避了上述问题。然而,无论撰稿人多么志同道合,编辑多么强势,都无法达到方法的一致性,那些跨越撰稿人专业关注点的主题也被完全忽略了。

These difficulties are compounded when the historian steps still further away from the moorings of his or her first-hand research and attempts a comprehensive survey of an entire epoch. If a monograph is a secondary source, the survey can fairly be described as a ‘tertiary’ source, since the writer is inevitably placed in the position of making emphatic statements about topics based on no more than a reading of the standard secondary authorities. Nitpicking criticism by the specialists whose fields have been trespassed upon is the inevitable result. Works of this kind will be much more vulnerable to the vagaries of fashion, and their judgements will be overtaken by new research much more quickly than those of the narrowly conceived monograph. The academic standing of the synthesis by a single hand is further compromised by the sad truth that many are not true syntheses at all but textbooks which for ease of reference summarize the state of knowledge in a rigidly compartmentalized and mechanical fashion. Some historians, conscious that their claims to professional expertise are most convincingly demonstrated in the evaluation of primary sources, feel instinctively that this is no work for ‘real scholars’.27 Others have sought to meet the demand for surveys by participating in collaborative histories. The prototype was the Cambridge Modern History, planned under the supervision of Lord Acton in 1896 and covering European history since the mid-fifteenth century in twelve volumes, each composed of national and thematic chapters by the leading authorities. Since then collaborative histories have proliferated. Yet, invaluable though they may be as concise statements of specialist knowledge, such compilations evade the issue. However like-minded the contributors and however forceful the editor, a consistency of approach cannot be attained, and the themes that cut across the specialist concerns of the contributors are completely omitted.

一位历史学家开展的广泛调查具有几项至关重要的功能。首先,它最好是新问题的源泉。不懈的原始研究,虽然必要却又令人执着于细节,但也可能导致某种程度的思维局限:正如阿克顿略带刻薄地指出,“档案的尘埃会掩盖思想”。 28一位历史学家如果能抽出时间从档案中抽身,对一段较长的历史时期进行调查,就更有可能发现新的模式和新的关联,这些模式和关联可以在后续的详细研究中得到验证。E·J·霍布斯鲍姆的《革命时代》(1962)至今仍是研究1789年至1848年间受法国大革命和工业革命双重影响的欧洲历史的最佳著作,书中充满了引人入胜的并置,这是任何一位局限于单一国家的历史学家都无法想到的。何塞·哈里斯选择1870年至1914年作为其英国社会史研究的时期,从而揭示了20世纪后期诸多社会思潮的根源可追溯至这一时期(劳工运动、女权主义和宗教怀疑只是她所涵盖的部分主题)。 29在一个诠释问题尚未完全确立的新兴领域,这种梳理历史的做法能够带来丰厚的回报,尤其是在……人们往往倾向于先通过积累案例研究来进行研究。以心态史和殖民对非洲的影响史为例,这种情况尤为突出。碎片化的弊端显而易见。历史学家必须将各个案例结合起来进行考察,才能辨析出新的连续性、变化性和矛盾性图景,并制定新的研究议程。

The wide-ranging survey by a single historian fulfils several vital functions. First, it is at its best a fertile source of new questions. Unremitting primary research, with its necessary but obsessive attention to detail, can lead to a certain intellectual blinkering: ‘the dust of archives blots out ideas’, as Acton rather unkindly put it.28 The historian who takes time off from the records to survey an extended period is much more likely to detect new patterns and new correlations which can later be tested in detailed research. E.J. Hobsbawm’s Age of Revolution (1962), still unsurpassed as a survey of Europe from 1789 to 1848 under the twin impact of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, positively bristles with arresting juxtapositions which no historian confined to a single country could have entertained. By selecting the period 1870–1914 for her survey of English social history, Jose Harris was able to show how many of the late twentieth century’s preoccupations originated in her chosen period (the labour movement, feminism and religious doubt being just some of the themes she covers).29 In a new field where major issues of interpretation have scarcely been formulated, this kind of stock-taking can yield rich dividends, particularly when there is a tendency to proceed initially by the accumulation of case studies. This has been notably true of the history of mentalities and the history of the colonial impact on Africa, to take just two examples. The dangers of fragmentation are obvious. There must come a point when the historian considers the individual cases together, so that a new landscape of continuity, change and contradiction can be discerned and a new agenda laid out.

其次,宏观概览是历史学家履行其对广大公众义务的主要途径。公众对学院派历史学家著作的兴趣绝不仅限于概览性作品——埃马纽埃尔·勒鲁瓦·拉杜里(Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie)的《蒙塔尤》(Montaillou,1976)的成功便是一个例证。但本书的吸引力主要在于其重塑性。如果历史学家想要成功地传达他们对历史变迁以及过去与现在之间联系的理解,那么他们就必须通过雄心勃勃的概览来实现这一目标。许多历史学家一心想要不惜一切代价维护自己的学术地位,却过度担忧流于表面甚至犯下彻头彻尾的错误,而那些为普通读者写作的历史学家也常常受到势利的贬低。然而,将严谨的学术性与通俗易懂的吸引力结合起来并非不可能。正如霍布斯鲍姆(Hobsbawm)所描述的那样,将他自己在这一领域卓有成就的尝试称为“高级通俗化” (Haute vulgarisation) 30 ,这是历史学家必须掌握的技能。

Second, the grand survey is the principal means by which historians fulfil their obligations to the wider public. Popular interest in the writings of academic historians is by no means confined to survey works – witness the success of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s Montaillou (1976). But the appeal of this book is primarily of a re-creative kind. If historians are to succeed in communicating their understanding of historical change and of the connectedness of past and present, then it is through the ambitious overview that they will do it. Many historians, intent on preserving their academic standing at all costs, are unduly oppressed by the dangers of superficiality and outright error, and there is much snobbish disparagement of those who write for the general reader. But it is not impossible to combine sound scholarship with a lay appeal. Haute vulgarisation, as Hobsbawm describes his own highly distinguished ventures in this field,30 is a necessary skill of the historian.

高级庸俗化

Haute vulgarisation

(法语)自上而下地推广。这是对“haute”(高级)与高级料理高级时装等专属追求之间联系的一种戏谑。

(French) Making popular from on high. A play on the association of haute (high) with such exclusive pursuits as haute cuisine or haute couture.

历史的进程

The march of history

最后,大规模的综合研究引发了一些历史解释方面的问题,这些问题本身就极其重要,而且超出了任何规模较小的研究所能涵盖的范围。历史是一门“进步的”学科,因为很少有人能在回顾过去时不自觉地思考事件的发展方向。这个问题并非形而上学的思辨,而是对人类经验的基本领域会随着时间推移而发生累积性变化这一事实的认识。在时间跨度较短的研究中,这个问题或许可以被回避,但它对于任何试图理解整个时代的尝试都至关重要:我们能否发现职业专业化程度的提高、社会规模的扩大、政府职能的扩张、信仰和言论自由的增强——或者这些趋势的逆转?或者,如果我们采取一种不那么渐进的历史进程观,那么特定时期可能……更应将其视为一种断裂和脱节,即新的形势迫使人们与过去既有的趋势决裂。例如,用“新帝国主义”来指代19世纪末的欧洲扩张,就蕴含着这样的含义。31一段较长时期的考察,会引发与研究某个明确界定的事件时所遇到的历史诠释问题截然不同——而且无疑更为重要——的问题。

Lastly, the large-scale synthesis raises questions of historical explanation which are profoundly important in their own right and which are beyond the scope of anything less ambitious. History is a ‘progressive’ subject in the sense that few people contemplating the past with the benefit of hindsight can fail to ask themselves in what direction events were moving. This question is not a matter of metaphysical speculation but rather a recognition that fundamental areas of human experience are subject to cumulative change over time. The issue may be evaded in studies confined to a short time-span, but it is central to any attempt to make sense of a whole era: can one detect increasing occupational specialization, or enlargement of social scale, or an expansion in the scope of government, or greater freedom of belief and expression – or any of these trends in reverse? Alternatively, to adopt a less incremental view of the historical process, a given period may be seen rather in terms of discontinuity and disjuncture, where new circumstances force a break with the inherited tendencies of the past. That is the implication, for example, of using the label ‘the New Imperialism’ to refer to European expansion towards the end of the nineteenth century.31 Consideration of an extended period raises problems of historical interpretation of a different – and surely more significant – order than those that crop up in the study of a well-defined episode.

新帝国主义

New Imperialism

历史学家认为,19世纪末欧洲海外扩张的浪潮标志着帝国发展进入了一个截然不同的、更具侵略性的阶段,这与此前几十年较为缓慢且零散的扩张方式大相径庭。因此,19世纪80年代和90年代被称为“新帝国主义”时期。

Historians have seen the drive for European overseas expansion in the late nineteenth century as marking a distinctively assertive phase in the development of empire, different from the slower and more piecemeal expansion of previous decades. The 1880s and 1890s have therefore been termed the period of ‘New Imperialism’.

历史综合

Historical synthesis

过去一百年来,历史研究的范围大幅扩展,其结果之一是,我们对“全面”考察的定义远比十九世纪的大师们更为苛刻:它既包括“事件”的瞬息万变,也包括物质和精神生活条件。在许多时期——尤其是在前工业时代——这些条件变化缓慢,甚至根本没有变化,却限制了人们的所作所为和思想。G.R.埃尔顿断言“历史研究的是事件,而非状态;它研究的是发生的事情,而非事物本身” 32 ,这番话值得商榷,因为它只说对了一半。正如我们已经看到的,表象与背景——或者说事件与“结构”——之间的关系,对于理解历史进程至关重要。受马克思主义传统启发的大量著作可以被视为这种关注的一种体现(参见第八章),但年鉴学派对这一问题进行了最直接的探讨,而费尔南·布罗代尔在这方面尤为突出。 “有可能吗?”他问道。

One consequence of the immense expansion in the scope of historical enquiry that has taken place in the past hundred years is that our definition of a ‘comprehensive’ survey is much more demanding than that of the great nineteenth-century masters: it includes both the giddy passage of ‘events’ and the material and mental conditions of life which in many periods – and certainly in the pre-industrial world – changed very slowly if at all, and yet constrained what people could do or think. G.R. Elton’s affirmation that ‘history deals in events, not states; it investigates things that happen and not things that are’32 is a questionable half-truth. How surface and background – or events and ‘structure’ – are related is central to any understanding of historical process, as we have seen already. The large body of writing inspired by the Marxist tradition can be interpreted as one manifestation of this concern (see Chapter 8), but it is the Annales school that has confronted the problem most directly, and Fernand Braudel more than anyone else. ‘Is it possible’, he asks,

如何才能同时传达出两种截然不同的历史:一种是引人注目、因其持续而剧烈的变化而吸引我们注意力的显赫历史,另一种是几乎无声、始终谨慎、几乎不为观察者或参与者察觉、且很少受到时间顽固侵蚀的隐秘历史?33

somehow to convey simultaneously both that conspicuous history which holds our attention by its continual and dramatic changes – and that other, submerged history, almost silent and always discreet, virtually unsuspected either by its observers or its participants, which is little touched by the obstinate erosion of time?33

社会时间的多样性

The plurality of social time

在布罗代尔看来,困难的根源在于传统历史学家所持有的单线时间观念——即以历史发展的连续性为特征的单一时间尺度。由于历史学家强调文献本身,并渴望了解文献撰写者的思想,这种时间尺度……几乎不可能存在一种非短期的、只记录事件顺序而忽略结构的叙事方式。布罗代尔的解决方案是彻底抛弃单线时间,转而引入“社会时间的多元性” 34 ——即历史在不同的层面或尺度上展开,这些层面或尺度在实践中可以简化为三个:长期(la longue durée),它揭示了物质生活的基本条件、精神状态,尤其是自然环境的影响;中期,社会、经济和政治组织形式的生命周期;以及短期,即个人的时间和事件历史的时间。布罗代尔本人在《地中海》中并未解决的问题是如何在同一历史时刻展现这些不同层面的共存——如何在一个连贯的论述中阐明它们之间的相互作用,从而将不同层次的叙事、描述和分析融为一体。当代历史学家比他们的前辈们对这个问题有着更敏锐的认识;这或许是他们面临的最根本的问题。

For Braudel the root of the difficulty lies in the conventional historian’s idea of unilinear time – that is, a single time-scale characterized by continuity of historical development. Because of the historian’s emphasis on the documents and the aspiration to get inside the minds of those who wrote them, this time-scale can hardly be other than a short-term one which registers the sequence of events to the exclusion of structure. Braudel’s solution is to jettison unilinear time altogether and to introduce instead the ‘plurality of social time’34 – the notion that history moves on different planes or registers, which can for practical purposes be reduced to three: the long term (la longue durée), which reveals the fundamental conditions of material life, states of mind and above all the impact of the natural environment; the medium term, in which the forms of social, economic and political organization have their life-span; and the short term, the time of the individual and of l’histoire événementielle. The problem, which Braudel himself did not solve in The Mediterranean, is how to convey the coexistence of these different levels in a single moment of historical time – how to elucidate their interaction in a coherent exposition which incorporates different levels of narrative, description and analysis. This is an issue about which contemporary historians are much more keenly aware than their predecessors; it is perhaps the most fundamental that they face.

V

V

比较史

Comparative history

时间尺度和时间深度的问题通常由研究单一社会的学者探讨。但历史解释和历史阐述也必须正视这样一个事实:特定社会在过去的经验并非完全独特:它与其他同类型社会,有时甚至是地理位置相距甚远的社会,都存在共同特征。换言之,在我们描述例如十二世纪英国的封建关系或十九世纪美国的种植园奴隶制时,都隐含着一种比较——前者是与西欧的封建社会比较,后者是与加勒比海和巴西的奴隶制社会比较。这类比较对于理解历史具有重要意义。例如,如果将奴隶制视为一种本质上统一的制度,反映了共同的种族主义文化和资本主义生产关系发展的一个特定阶段,那么在美国盛行的奴隶制版本就显得不那么“特殊”,美国的情况的偶然性也就不那么具有解释意义了。

Problems of time-scale and time-depth are most often explored by scholars working on a single society. But historical explanation and historical exposition also have to come to terms with the fact that the experience of a given society in the past was never entirely distinctive: it shared features with other societies of similar type, sometimes with societies that were physically far removed. In other words, lurking behind the statements we make about, say, feudal relations in twelfth-century England, or plantation slavery in the nineteenth-century United States, is an implied comparison – in the first case with the feudal societies of Western Europe, in the second case with the slave societies of the Caribbean and Brazil. Such comparisons can have an important bearing on historical understanding. If, for example, slavery is viewed as an essentially uniform institution reflecting both a common culture of racism and a particular stage in the development of capitalist relations of production, then the version which prevailed in the United States will seem much less of a ‘peculiar institution’, and the contingencies of the American scene will have much less explanatory significance.

封建关系

feudal relations

中世纪英格兰的土地保有权制度认为,社会地位取决于个人与土地的关系。土地总是从他人手中“持有”(因此称为“保有权”),通常(但不总是)持有者是社会地位更高的人。最终,所有土地都归于王室。

The system in medieval England whereby social position was determined by a person’s relationship to the land. Land was always ‘held’ (hence ‘tenure’) from someone else, usually – though not always – a social superior. Ultimately all land was held from the Crown.

种植园奴隶制

plantation slavery

十九世纪美国南部各州种植的主要作物是烟草和棉花。最经济有效的种植方式是在大型种植园里,由非洲奴隶劳动,因此有了“种植园奴隶制”。

The predominant crops grown in the southern states of the nineteenth-century United States were tobacco and cotton. The most economically efficient way to farm them was in large plantations worked by African slave labour, hence ‘plantation slavery’.

这就解释了比较史的吸引力所在。它可以被定义为对两个或多个通常被视为独立的古代社会中的特定特征进行系统比较。它要求对至少两个国家的历史背景有深入的了解:仅仅将若干独立的国家研究汇编成册是不够的。比较史的价值通常体现在对短时间内不同时期进行细致的比较研究上。例如,苏珊·格雷泽尔(Susan Grayzel)通过比较英国和法国,试图理解第一次世界大战对性别观念的影响;她的结论是,尽管两国文化迥异,但女性参战对两国的影响本质上是相同的。相比之下,福利史学家苏珊·佩德森(Susan Pedersen)从英法视角出发,揭示了战争期间和两次世界大战之间截然不同的家庭支持公共策略。 35由于此类研究通常以两个社会的原始资料为基础,且研究时间跨度和主题都较为明确,因此通常要求研究者必须掌握这两个社会的原始资料。对于像英国和法国这样历史文献丰富的国家来说,这无疑是一项艰巨的任务。

This explains the appeal of comparative history. It can be defined as the systematic comparison of selected features in two or more past societies that are normally considered apart. It requires mastery of at least two national contexts: bringing together a number of free-standing national studies into the covers of an edited volume does not qualify. The merits of comparative history have most often been demonstrated by closely focused comparisons over a short time span. For example Susan Grayzel has sought to understand the impact of the First World War on understandings of gender by comparing Britain and France; her conclusion is that the implications for women of involvement in the war were essentially the same in both countries, despite their divergent national cultures. By contrast, the welfare historian Susan Pedersen’s Anglo-French perspective brings to light quite different public strategies for supporting families during the war and the inter-war period.35 Closely defined by period and topic, it is usually expected that such studies should be based on primary sources in both societies. In the case of well-documented nations like Britain and France that is no small commitment.

但比较史学的雄心远不止于此。当应用于国家发展轨迹或社会变迁的长期研究时,比较同样具有启发意义。不同之处在于,这种比较史学研究难度更大,因此成功的大规模比较史学著作数量也相对较少。近期的一项杰出之作是J·H·艾略特对英国和西班牙在美洲长达三个世纪的历史研究。英国在北美的殖民地和西班牙在中美洲和南美洲的属地通常被视为截然不同的两种事业。艾略特的研究揭示了更多差异。他将比较史学比作演奏手风琴:

But the ambitions of comparative history go further. Comparison is no less illuminating when applied to trajectories of national development or social change over an extended period. The difference is that it is even harder to accomplish, and the number of successful large-scale comparative histories is therefore small. A recent tour de force is J.H. Elliott’s study of the British and Spanish empires in the Americas over their entire history of three centuries. Britain’s North American colonies and the Spanish dependencies in Central and South America have generally been viewed as very different enterprises. Elliott’s research uncovered further differences. He likens doing comparative history to playing the accordion:

这两个被比较的社会被推到一起,但最终又被拉开。相似之处最终证明并不像乍看之下那么接近;乍看之下隐藏的差异也逐渐显现。36

The two societies under comparison are pushed together, but only to be pulled apart again. Resemblances prove after all not as close as they look at first sight; differences are discovered which at first sight lay concealed.36

这部历史著作融合了主题比较、平行叙述和全面综合等多种元素,对作者的研究技能和写作能力都提出了很高的要求。传统专著所要求的全面详实的原始研究是无法实现的;埃利奥特大量引用已出版的第一手资料,例如游记和日记,但他的解读主要依赖于数量惊人的二手文献。比较方法有时被机械地、割裂地运用。埃利奥特的处理方式更为自由,“不断地比较、并置和交织这两个故事”。 37

Part thematic comparison, part parallel narrative, part all-encompassing synthesis: history of this complexity makes heavy demands on both the research skills and the powers of composition of the writer. The comprehensive primary research that would be expected of the conventional monograph is not feasible; Elliott makes extensive use of quotations from published primary sources such as travel literature and diaries, but his interpretation rests primarily on a phenomenal range of secondary works. The comparative approach is sometimes applied in a mechanical compartmentalised fashion. Elliott’s treatment is freer, ‘constantly comparing, juxtaposing and interweaving the two stories’.37

比较史学在历史学家中仍属于小众研究领域,但它是加深我们对过去理解的重要途径。始终局限于单一社会的框架内进行研究,会使我们丧失批判性的视角。地方性的发展可能被错误地视为独一无二,而偏离常规的意义则可能被忽视;正如埃利奥特本人所言,“民族史学家的通病就是特殊论”。 38比较史学至少为这种狭隘的地方主义提供了一种重要的修正。在某些情况下,它甚至开辟了新的分析路径。空间和时间共同决定了历史探究的本质。

Comparative history remains a minority pursuit among historians, but it is an essential means of deepening our understanding of the past. Always to work within the boundaries of a single society is to deprive oneself of a critical angle of vision. Local developments can be mistakenly treated as unique, and the significance of variations from the norm can be overlooked; as Elliott himself has remarked, ‘the besetting sin of the national historian is exceptionalism’.38 At the very least comparative history offers an important corrective to such blinkered parochialism. In some cases it opens up the possibility of a new line of analysis. Space, as well as time, defines the nature of historical enquiry.

六年级

VI

历史学家的素质

The qualities of a historian

成功从事历史研究需要具备哪些素质?局外人往往对此持否定态度。或许对历史学界最著名的贬损之词要数约翰逊博士的这番话了:

What qualities does the successful practice of history call for? Outside observers have often taken an unflattering view. Probably the most famous put-down of the profession ever written was Dr Johnson’s:

历史学家并不需要卓越的才能;因为在历史写作中,人类最强大的思维能力都处于休眠状态。他手头已有现成的事实,因此无需进行任何虚构。想象力也无需达到很高的水平;它只需要与低级诗歌形式中所使用的想象力大致相当即可。39

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has the facts ready to hand so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any high degree; only about as much as is used in the lower forms of poetry.39

即使在约翰逊的时代,这种评论也算不上公平,而鉴于自十八世纪以来历史学的发展,这种评论就显得更加不恰当了。因为事实并非唾手可得。新的事实不断被添加到历史知识体系中,与此同时,既定事实的可靠性也需要不断重新评估;而且,正如第四章和第五所示,史料的缺陷使得这项双重任务远比乍看之下要困难得多。十九世纪建立的学院派历史学家培养体系,其主要目的在于——而且至今仍然如此——培养学生掌握历史知识的能力。要让他们摒弃任何认为事实可以不费吹灰之力就能掌握的想法。因此,历史研究方法手册中最强调的素质是对原始资料的精通以及批判性地评估这些资料的能力。

This was hardly fair comment even in Johnson’s day, and in the light of the development of the profession since the eighteenth century it seems even less apt. For the truth is that the facts do not lie ready to hand. New facts continue to be added to the body of historical knowledge, while at the same time the credentials of established facts are subject to constant reassessment; and, as Chapters 4 and 5 showed, the defective condition of the sources renders this dual enterprise far more difficult than might appear at first sight. The training of academic historians instituted in the nineteenth century was – and still is – primarily intended to disabuse them of any notion that the facts can be apprehended without effort. The qualities most emphasized in manuals of historical method are accordingly mastery of the primary sources and critical acumen in evaluating them.

约翰逊博士(1709–84)

Dr Johnson (1709–84)

塞缪尔·约翰逊,英国作家和词典编纂家,最著名的成就是编纂了世界上第一部英语词典。约翰逊的言辞精辟,至今仍常被引用。他的朋友詹姆斯·博斯韦尔为他撰写了一部详尽的传记。

Samuel Johnson, English writer and lexicographer, best known for having produced the world’s first dictionary of the English language. Johnson was given to pithy comments, which still lend themselves to quotation. He was the subject of an extensive biography by his friend James Boswell.

但这些技能只能引领历史学家迈向成功的第一步。诠释和写作的过程还要求具备许多其他同样重要的素质。首先,历史学家必须能够洞察事件之间的关联,并从浩如烟海的细节中提炼出最能解释历史的模式:因果模式、能够支撑“文艺复兴”或“中世纪”等标签的时期划分模式,以及能够让我们理解19世纪法国小资产阶级或17世纪早期英国“新兴乡绅”等概念的群体划分模式。研究的范围越宏大,所需的抽象和概念化能力就越强。真正令人满意的宏观综合研究寥寥无几,这正体现了具备这些卓越才智是多么难能可贵。

But these skills can only take the historian one stage along the road. The process of interpretation and composition suggests a number of other equally essential qualities. First, the historian has to be able to perceive the relatedness of events and to abstract from the mountains of detail those patterns that make best sense of the past: patterns of cause and effect, patterns of periodization that justify such labels as ‘Renaissance’ or ‘medieval’, and patterns of grouping that make it meaningful to speak of a petit bourgeoisie in nineteenth-century France or ‘rising gentry’ in early seventeenth-century England. The more ambitious the scope of the enquiry, the greater the powers of abstraction and conceptualization required. The small number of really satisfying syntheses on the grand scale is a measure of how rare a generous endowment of these intellectual qualities is.

小资产阶级

petit bourgeoisie

“资产阶级”一词的字面意思是“城镇的”,因此主要指那些活动范围在城市而非乡村的中产阶级。然而,由于其涵盖范围从富裕的商人和专业人士一直延伸到小商贩,因此需要加以限定。“资产阶级”(Bourgeoisie)通常专指有实力的商人和专业人士,而“小资产阶级”(petit bourgeoisie,有时在英语中写作“petty bourgeois”)则指小商贩和小商人。

Bourgeois simply means ‘of the town’ and is therefore applied to those, principally the ‘middle’ classes, whose sphere of operation is urban rather than rural. However, since this ranges from the wealthy merchant and professional classes down to small shopkeepers, the term needs to be qualified. Bourgeoisie is usually reserved for substantial businessmen and those in the professions, while petit bourgeoisie ie (the ‘little’ bourgeoisie, sometimes rendered as ‘petty bourgeois’ in English) refers to shopkeepers and small businessmen.

想像力

Imagination

除了敏锐的学术洞察力,历史学家还需要想象力。在历史写作的语境中,“想象力”一词很容易引起误解。它并非指持续不断的创造性发明,尽管约翰逊博士显然认为历史学家在这方面有所欠缺。关键在于,任何重构过去的尝试都预设了想象力的运用,因为历史永远无法被其遗留的文献完全记录下来。历史学家一次又一次地遇到记录中的空白,他们只有通过对现存史料的深入研究,才能对可能发生的事情产生“感觉”或直觉,从而填补这些空白。动机和心态问题常常属于此类,而且文化越是陌生和遥远,理解它所需的想象力就越大。那些被斥为“枯燥乏味”的书籍,通常是因为作者缺乏想象力,未能使细节的堆砌鲜活起来。

As well as an intellectual cutting edge, the historian also requires imagination. This term can easily lead to confusion in the context of historical writing. It is not intended to convey the idea of sustained creative invention, though it was evidently against this yardstick that Dr Johnson found historians wanting. The point is rather that any attempt to reconstruct the past presupposes an exercise of imagination, because the past is never completely captured in the documents which it left behind. Again and again historians encounter gaps in the record which they can fill only by being so thoroughly exposed to the surviving sources that they have a ‘feel’ or instinct for what might have happened. Matters of motive and mentality frequently fall into this category, and the more alien and remote the culture the greater the imaginative leap required to understand it. Those books condemned as ‘dry as dust’ are usually the ones in which the accumulation of detail has not been brought to life by the play of the writer’s imagination.

如何培养历史想象力?当然,保持对周围世界的敏锐观察力大有裨益。正如理查德·科布所发现的那样:

How is the historical imagination nurtured? It helps, of course, to keep your eyes and ears (and nostrils) open to the world around you. As Richard Cobb found:

巴黎十八世纪的大部分历史,里昂十九世纪的大部分历史,都可以通过步行、观看,尤其是聆听的方式展现出来——在小餐馆里、公交车后排的站台上、咖啡馆里,或者公园的长椅上。40

A great deal of Paris eighteenth-century history, of Lyon nineteenth-century history can be walked, seen, and above all heard, in small restaurants, on the platform at the back of a bus, in cafés, or on the park bench.40

历史学家对生活的了解

The historian’s knowledge of life

对过去人们的共情能力预设了一定的自我意识,一些历史学家甚至认为精神分析可以作为学徒训练的一部分。 41 然而,广博的经验才是更有前景的基础。在历史写作主要局限于政治叙事的年代,公共生活经验被广泛认为是历史学家最好的训练;正如吉本在谈到他短暂的议员生涯时所说:“我在议会的八届会议是一所培养公民审慎的学校,这是历史学家首要且最重要的美德。” 42

The ability to empathize with people in the past presupposes a certain self-awareness, and some historians have gone so far as to suggest that psychoanalysis might form part of the apprentice’s training.41 Breadth of experience, however, is a much more promising foundation. In the days when history writing was largely confined to political narrative, experience of public life was widely regarded as the best training for historians; as Gibbon said of his short career as an MP: ‘The eight sessions that I sat in parliament were a school of civil prudence, the first and most essential virtue of an historian’.42

战争经历或许加深了许多二十世纪政治史、外交史和战争史学家的洞见。但真正重要的是丰富的阅历——不同国家、阶级和性格的体验——这样,历史学家脑海中的想象力才能与过去各种不同的境况和心态产生某种关联。遗憾的是,如今学院派历史学家的常规职业发展模式很少考虑到这一点。几年前有人建议,对历史学家来说,最好的训练方式是环游世界,并在不同行业从事多种工作。这种建议或许不切实际,但绝非轻率之言。43

Wartime service probably deepened the insights of many twentieth-century historians of politics, diplomacy and war. But it is variety of experience that really tells – experience of different countries, classes and temperaments – so that the range of imaginative possibilities in the historian’s mind bears some relation to the range of conditions and mentalities in the past. Unfortunately the usual career pattern of academic historians nowadays makes little allowance for this requirement. A suggestion some years ago that the best training for a historian is a trip round the world and several jobs in different walks of life may have been impracticable, but it was not meant to be flippant.43

然而,对过去有丰富的想象力是一回事,能够将这种想象力传达给读者则是另一回事。语言或文学技巧对历史学家来说至关重要。在19世纪之前,这一点被认为是理所当然的。自古典时代以来,历史学家这一职业就被其主要倡导者视为一项文学成就。历史有其主宰的缪斯(克利俄),在读者文化中占据着稳固的地位,并且拥有一系列修辞和文体惯例,而掌握这些惯例是立志成为历史学家的首要任务。这一切随着学院派历史的兴起而改变。追随兰克脚步的职业历史学家们所面临的问题是方法论而非表达方式。对……的掌握人们常常将资料来源或“学术研究”与“写作”对立起来,这损害了后者;“克利俄,这位曾经的缪斯女神,如今更常见的是拿着查阅证,在公共档案馆核实她的资料来源。” 44结果,过去一百年间,大量晦涩难懂的历史著作被写成。

It is one thing, however, to have an imaginative insight into the past, and quite another to be able to convey this to the reader. Verbal or literary skills are of considerable importance to the historian. At any time prior to the nineteenth century this would have been taken for granted. Since classical times the profession of historian had been considered by its leading exponents to be above all a literary accomplishment. History had its presiding muse (Clio), a secure place in the culture of the reading public, and a range of rhetorical and stylistic conventions which it was the principal task of the aspirant historian to master. All this changed with the rise of academic history. The problems that exercised the professional historians who followed in Ranke’s footsteps were those of method rather than presentation. Command of the sources or ‘scholarship’ has often been counterposed to ‘writing’, to the detriment of the latter; ‘Clio, once a Muse, is now more commonly seen, with a reader’s ticket, verifying her references at the Public Record Office’.44 As a result a great deal of unreadable history has been written in the last hundred years.

沉思

muse

在希腊神话中,缪斯是宙斯和记忆女神谟涅摩绪涅的女儿。她们各自掌管着不同的知识和艺术领域,例如音乐、诗歌、喜剧和哑剧。历史缪斯是克利俄。

In Greek mythology, the muses were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. Each presided over a particular branch of knowledge and the arts, such as music, poetry, comedy and mime. The muse of history was Clio.

但优秀的写作并非可有可无的附加品或幸运的额外收获。它对于历史的再创造层面至关重要。若缺乏丰富的文学才华——对细节的敏锐洞察力、唤起情绪、气质和氛围的能力,以及营造悬念的技巧——历史想象力所带来的洞见根本无法分享。而这些特质在创意写作中得到了最充分的展现。解释性的历史与创意文学的共通之处并不多,这或许可以解释为何那些最重视历史学科文学性的历史学家——例如G.M.特里维廉或C.V.韦奇伍德——对这一领域的贡献相对较少。严密的论证以及需要用诸多限定和警告来约束陈述,都不利于“文学性”的表达。表达方式。然而,任何历史阐释都不可避免地会面临叙事与分析相结合的问题,而这个问题本质上是一个文学形式问题。它的解决几乎从来都不是取决于材料本身。

But good writing is more than an optional extra or a lucky bonus. It is central to the re-creative aspect of history. The insights derived from the exercise of historical imagination cannot be shared at all without a good deal of literary flair – an eye for detail, the power to evoke mood, temperament and ambience, and an illusion of suspense – qualities that are most fully developed in creative writing. History of the explanatory kind does not share so much common ground with creative literature, which may be one reason why those historians who set most store by the literary claims of their discipline – G.M. Trevelyan or C.V. Wedgwood, for example – have contributed relatively little to this sphere. Close argument and the need to hedge so many statements with qualifications and caveats are not conducive to ‘literary’ expression. Nevertheless, the problem of combining narrative with analysis which attends any venture in historical explanation is essentially a problem of literary form. Its solution is hardly ever dictated by the material.

在古典神话中,克利俄是缪斯女神,她启发历史学家,正如其他缪斯启发诗人、音乐家等等一样。如今,人们提及克利俄,意味着历史是文学艺术的一种,应该用审美标准来评判。(akg-images,伦敦)

In classical mythology Clio was the muse who inspired historians, just as other muses inspired poets and musicians, etc. When Clio is invoked today, the implication is that history is one of the literary arts and should be judged by aesthetic standards. (akg-images, London)

这样看来,历史学家所需的各项素质和技能似乎都不算特别苛刻。但要找到一位能够同时具备所有这些素质和技能的人却实属罕见。极少有历史学家能在技术、学术、想象力和文体方面都达到同样的水平,尽管近几十年来专业学术研究取得了巨大的发展,但任何研究领域中真正令人满意的历史著作数量仍然寥寥无几。与此同时,历史学家所需技能的多样性也印证了另一点——历史本质上是一门混合学科,它融合了科学的技术和分析方法以及艺术的想象力和文体特质。

Set out in this way, it may be that none of the qualities or skills required of the historian seems particularly demanding. But it is rare to find all of them combined in sufficient measure in the same person. Very few historians are equally endowed in the technical, intellectual, imaginative and stylistic spheres, and despite the immense expansion of professional scholarship in recent decades, the number of fully satisfying historical works in any branch of study remains small. At the same time, the varied nature of the historian’s equipment serves to reiterate another point – that history is essentially a hybrid discipline, combining the technical and analytical procedures of a science with the imaginative and stylistic qualities of an art.

亚历克西斯·德·托克维尔 (1805–59)

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59)

亚历克西·德·托克维尔是一位法国律师、历史学家和社会评论家。他在1835年出版的《论美国的民主》一书中指出,尽管美国人比欧洲人享有更大的自由,但这种自由却导致了富人对穷人的压迫,其规模远超欧洲君主制国家。托克维尔是一位坚定的自由主义者,反对官僚政府的中央集权倾向;他曾在短暂存在的法兰西第二共和国(1849-1852年)担任外交部长,但拒绝在路易·拿破仑(1852年起为拿破仑三世皇帝)的独裁政府中任职。他的经典著作《旧制度与法国大革命》指出,法国大革命及其后的拿破仑帝国只不过延续了波旁王朝的压迫性和中央集权倾向。他还认为,一个压迫性政权最脆弱的时候,恰恰是它开始自我改革之时。

Alexis de Tocqueville was a French lawyer, historian and social commentator. His 1835 study of Democracy in America argued that although Americans enjoyed greater liberty than Europeans, their liberty led to oppression of the poor by the materialistic rich on a much greater scale than was to be found in the monarchies of Europe. De Tocqueville was a staunch libertarian and opponent of the centralizing tendencies of bureaucratic government; he was Foreign Minister in the short-lived second French Republic (1849–52) but refused to serve under the autocratic government of Louis Napoleon (Emperor Napoleon III from 1852). His classic study of The Ancien Regime and the French Revolution argued that the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire that followed it merely continued the oppressive, centralizing tendencies of the Bourbon regime. He also taught that an oppressive regime is at its most vulnerable precisely at the moment when it begins to reform itself.

第一次世界大战的起源

Origins of the First World War

第一次世界大战(1914-1918)的起因长期以来一直是历史争论的焦点。战时协约国认定德国应为战争的直接责任,并以此为基础制定了严苛的《凡尔赛条约》;德国对此的愤慨有助于解释民众对希特勒的支持。到了20世纪60年代大多数历史学家倾向于从政治、外交、军事、社会和个人因素的复杂相互作用来解释战争的爆发。然而,德国历史学家弗里茨·费舍尔教授打破了这一共识,他认为德国外交信函表明,德国政府实际上一直在筹划战争,并且应对战争负有主要责任。英国历史学家A.J.P.泰勒则提出了一个颇具争议的观点:最终的关键因素在于,各国的铁路时刻表过于僵化,以至于即使是最强大的政府,一旦下达了军队调动的命令,也无法阻止其入侵邻国。如今,很少有历史学家认同泰勒的极端观点,但费舍尔的论点仍然拥有相当数量的支持者。

The causes of the First World War (1914–18) have long proved a fruitful source of historical controversy. The wartime allies concluded that Germany was directly to blame and drew up the draconian Treaty of Versailles on that basis; German resentment at this helps to explain popular support for Hitler. By the 1960s most historians were more prepared to explain the outbreak of the war in terms of the complex interplay of political, diplomatic, military, social and personal factors. However, the German historian Professor Fritz Fischer broke this consensus by arguing that German diplomatic correspondence showed that the German government had indeed been planning for war and was largely to blame for it. The British historian A.J.P. Taylor argued provocatively that in the end the crucial factor was that each state’s railway timetables were so rigid that it was impossible for even the most powerful government, once orders had been given for troops to move, not to invade its neighbours. Few modern historians share Taylor’s extreme view, but the Fischer thesis still retains a substantial body of support.

废除奴隶制

The abolition of slavery

反对跨大西洋奴隶贸易的运动始于18世纪末英国的福音派基督徒,并开创了现代压力团体的诸多特征。该运动最重要的推动者是赫尔选区的托利党议员威廉·威尔伯福斯,他也是首相小威廉·皮特的密友。尽管得到了皮特和反对党领袖查尔斯·詹姆斯·福克斯的支持,但直到1807年才说服议会取缔奴隶贸易,而废除奴隶制本身则要等到1833年。许多前奴隶由于不识字且缺乏技能,被抛入只能赚取最低工资的就业市场,最终陷入赤贫。

The campaign against the transatlantic slave trade began among evangelical Christians in late eighteenth-century England and pioneered many of the features of modern pressure groups. The movement’s most important convert was William Wilberforce, Tory MP for Hull and a close friend of the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger. Despite support from Pitt and the Opposition leader, Charles James Fox, it took until 1807 to persuade Parliament to outlaw the slave trade, and till 1833 to abolish slavery itself. Illiterate and without skills, thrown into a job market in which they could earn only the lowest wages, many former slaves were reduced to penury.

延伸阅读

Further reading

GR Elton《历史的实践》,Fontana出版社,1969年。

G.R. Elton, The Practice of History, Fontana, 1969.

William Lamont(编),《历史争议与历史学家》,伦敦大学学院出版社,1998 年。

William Lamont (ed.), Historical Controversies and Historians, UCL Press, 1998.

Peter Burke(编),《历史写作的新视角》,Polity出版社,1991年。

Peter Burke (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Polity Press, 1991.

LP Curtis(编),《历史学家的工作室》,Knopf出版社,1970年。

L.P. Curtis (ed.), The Historian’s Workshop, Knopf, 1970.

Bernard Bailyn,《现代史学的挑战》,《美国历史评论》,第87卷,1982年。

Bernard Bailyn, ‘The challenge of modern historiography’, American Historical Review, LXXXVII, 1982.

WH Walsh,“历史中的关联概念”,载于 Patrick Gardiner(编),《历史哲学》,牛津大学出版社,1974 年。

W.H. Walsh, ‘Colligatory concepts in history’, in Patrick Gardiner (ed.), The Philosophy of History, Oxford University Press, 1974.

Alun Munslow《解构历史》,Routledge出版社,1997年。

Alun Munslow, Deconstructing History, Routledge, 1997.

Hayden White《元历史:十九世纪欧洲的历史想象》,约翰·霍普金斯大学出版社,1973年。

Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.

笔记

Notes

  1   VH Galbraith,《历史研究导论》,C. Watts 出版社,1964 年,第 80 页。

  1  V.H. Galbraith, An Introduction to the Study of History, C. Watts, 1964, p. 80.

  2  例如,参见 EH Carr,《什么是历史?》,企鹅出版社,1964 年,第 28-29 页;以及 JGA Pocock,“在时间中思考思想”,载于 LP Curtis(编),《历史学家的工作室》,克诺夫出版社,1970 年,第 161、175 页。

  2  See, for example, E.H. Carr, What is History?, Penguin, 1964, pp. 28–9, and J.G.A. Pocock, ‘Working on ideas in time’, in L.P. Curtis (ed.), The Historian’s Workshop, Knopf, 1970, pp. 161, 175.

  3   H. Butterfield,《历史与人际关系》,柯林斯出版社,1951 年,第 237 页。

  3  H. Butterfield, History and Human Relations, Collins, 1951, p. 237.

  4   Fernand Braudel,《腓力二世时代的地中海和地中海世界》,2 卷,柯林斯出版社,1972 年。

  4  Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols, Collins, 1972.

  5  黛安·珀基斯,《英国革命:人民的历史》,哈珀出版社,2006 年;奥兰多·费吉斯,《人民的悲剧:俄国革命,1891-1924》,乔纳森·凯普出版社,1996 年,第 xix 页。

  5  Diane Purkiss, The English Civil War: A People’s History, Harper, 2006; Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891–1924, Jonathan Cape, 1996, p. xix.

  6   James Joll,《未言明的假设》,载于 HW Koch(编),《第一次世界大战的起源》,麦克米伦出版社,1972 年。

  6  James Joll, ‘The unspoken assumptions’, in H.W. Koch (ed.), The Origins of the First World War, Macmillan, 1972.

  7  有关这一概念的精彩讨论,请参阅伯纳德·贝林 (Bernard Bailyn) 的文章《现代史学的挑战》,载于《美国历史评论》第 87 卷,1982 年,第 1-24 页。

  7  For an excellent discussion of this notion, see Bernard Bailyn, ‘The challenge of modern historiography’, American Historical Review, LXXXVII, 1982, pp. 1–24.

  8  这一观点的经典论述是埃里克·威廉姆斯所著的《资本主义与奴隶制》(北卡罗来纳大学出版社,1944 年)。

  8  The classic statement of this viewpoint is Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery, University of North Carolina Press, 1944.

  9  卡尔,《什么是历史?》第 52 页。

  9  Carr, What is History? p. 52.

10   Christine Bolt 和 Seymour Drescher(编),《反奴隶制、宗教与改革》,Dawson,1980 年(特别是 Brian Harrison 的文章)。

10  Christine Bolt and Seymour Drescher (eds), Anti-Slavery, Religion and Reform, Dawson, 1980 (especially the essay by Brian Harrison).

11   Lawrence Stone,《英国革命的原因 1529–1642》,Routledge & Kegan Paul,1972 年,第 3 章

11  Lawrence Stone, The Causes of the English Revolution 1529–1642, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972, ch. 3.

12   Carl E. Schorske,《世纪末维也纳:政治与文化》,Weidenfeld & Nicolson,1980 年,第 14 页。二十二.

12  Carl E. Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980, p. xxii.

13   RH Tawney,《历史与社会》,Routledge & Kegan Paul 出版社,1978 年,第 54 页。

13  R.H. Tawney, History and Society, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978, p. 54.

14  西蒙·沙玛,《公民:法国大革命编年史》,企鹅出版社,1989 年,第 xiv 页。

14  Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, Penguin 1989, p. xiv.

15   AJP Taylor,《按时间表进行的战争:第一次世界大战是如何开始的》,麦克唐纳出版社,1969 年,第 45 页。

15  A.J.P. Taylor, War by Timetable: How the First World War Began, Macdonald, 1969, p. 45.

16   RW Southern,《中世纪的形成》,哈钦森,1953 年,第 14-15 页。

16  R.W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages, Hutchinson, 1953, pp. 14–15.

17   Agatha Ramm,《利奥波德·冯·兰克》,载于约翰·坎农(编),《历史学家的工作》,艾伦和昂温出版社,1980 年,第 37 页。

17  Agatha Ramm, ‘Leopold von Ranke’, in John Cannon (ed.), The Historian at Work, Allen & Unwin, 1980, p. 37.

18  EP Thompson,《理论的贫困》,Merlin出版社,1978年,第85页。

18  E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory, Merlin Press, 1978, p. 85.

19   H. Butterfield,《乔治三世与历史学家》,柯林斯出版社,1957 年。

19  H. Butterfield, George III and the Historians, Collins, 1957.

20   Daniel Snowman,《历史》,帕尔格雷夫出版社,2007 年,第 10-11 页。

20  Daniel Snowman, Histories, Palgrave, 2007, pp. 10–11.

21   Hayden White,《元历史》,约翰·霍普金斯大学出版社,1973 年。

21  Hayden White, Metahistory, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.

22   Peter Burke,“事件史与叙事的复兴”,载于 P. Burke(编),《历史写作的新视角》,Polity Press,1991 年,第 241 页。

22  Peter Burke, ‘History of events and the revival of narrative’, in P. Burke (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Polity Press, 1991, p. 241.

23  娜塔莉·泽蒙·戴维斯 (Natalie Zemon Davis),《马丁·盖尔归来》,企鹅出版社,1985 年,第 4 页,viii。

23  Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre, Penguin, 1985, pp. 4, viii.

24  劳伦斯·斯通,《叙事的复兴》,1979 年,重印于他的《重访过去与现在》,劳特利奇和凯根·保罗出版社,1987 年。

24  Lawrence Stone, ‘The revival of narrative’, 1979, reprinted in his The Past and the Present Revisited, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987.

25   Lucien Febvre,《一种新的历史》,1949 年,译自 Peter Burke(编),《一种新的历史》,Routledge & Kegan Paul,1973 年,第 38 页。

25  Lucien Febvre, ‘A new kind of history’, 1949, translated in Peter Burke (ed.), A New Kind of History, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973, p. 38.

26   Marc Bloch 在Annales中,1932 年,引自 RR Davies,“Marc Bloch”,历史LII,1967 年,第 273 页。

26  Marc Bloch in Annales, 1932, quoted in R.R. Davies, ‘Marc Bloch’, History, LII, 1967, p. 273.

27  例如,参见 FM Powicke,《现代历史学家与历史研究》,Odhams 出版社,1955 年,第 202 页。

27  See, for example, F.M. Powicke, Modern Historians and the Study of History, Odhams, 1955, p. 202.

28  引自 H. Butterfield,《人谈往事》,剑桥大学出版社,1955 年,第 91 页。

28  Quoted in H. Butterfield, Man on His Past, Cambridge University Press, 1955, p. 91.

29   Jose Harris,《私人生活,公共精神:英国,1870-1914》,企鹅出版社,1994 年。

29  Jose Harris, Private Lives, Public Spirit: Britain, 1870–1914, Penguin, 1994.

30   EJ Hobsbawm,《革命的时代:1789-1848 年的欧洲》,Cardinal 出版社,1973 年,第 11 页。

30  E.J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848, Cardinal, 1973, p. 11.

31  例如,参见 CC Eldridge(编),《十九世纪的英国帝国主义》,麦克米伦出版社,1984 年。

31  See, for example, C.C. Eldridge (ed.), British Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century, Macmillan, 1984.

32   GR Elton,《历史的实践》,Fontana出版社,1969年,第22页。

32  G.R. Elton, The Practice of History, Fontana, 1969, p. 22.

33  布罗代尔,《地中海》,第一卷,第16页。

33  Braudel, The Mediterranean, vol. I, p. 16.

34  费尔南·布罗代尔,《历史与社会科学:长时段》,1958 年,重印于他的《论历史》,魏登菲尔德和尼科尔森出版社,1980 年,第 26 页。

34  Fernand Braudel, ‘History and the social sciences: la longue durée’, 1958, reprinted in his On History, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980, p. 26.

35   Susan R. Grayzel,《战争中的女性身份:第一次世界大战期间英国和法国的性别、母性和政治》,北卡罗来纳大学出版社,1999 年;Susan Pedersen,《家庭、依赖和福利国家的起源》,剑桥大学出版社,1993 年。

35  Susan R. Grayzel, Women’s Identities at War: Gender, Motherhood and Politics in Britain and France During the First World War, University of North Carolina Press, 1999; Susan Pedersen, Family, Dependence and the Origins of the Welfare State, Cambridge University Press, 1993.

36   JH Elliott,《大西洋世界的帝国:英国和西班牙在美洲,1492-1830》,耶鲁大学出版社,2006 年,第 xvii 页。

36  J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America, 1492–1830, Yale University Press, 2006, p. xvii.

37  同上,第十八页。

37  Ibid., p. xviii.

38   JH Elliott,《泰晤士报文学副刊》,1989 年 6 月 23 日,第 699 页。

38  J.H. Elliott, Times Literary Supplement, 23 June 1989, p. 699.

39   RW Chapman(编),《博斯韦尔的约翰逊传》,牛津大学出版社,1953 年,第 304 页。

39  R.W. Chapman (ed.), Boswell’s Life of Johnson, Oxford University Press, 1953, p. 304.

40  Richard Cobb,《第二身份》,牛津大学出版社,1969 年,第 19-20 页。

40  Richard Cobb, A Second Identity, Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 19–20.

41   H. Stuart Hughes,《历史作为艺术和科学》,芝加哥大学出版社,1964 年,第 65-66 页。

41  H. Stuart Hughes, History as Art and as Science, Chicago University Press, 1964, pp. 65–6.

42   MM Reese(编),《吉本自传》,Routledge & Kegan Paul,1970 年,第 99 页。

42  M.M. Reese (ed.), Gibbon’s Autobiography, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970, p. 99.

43  西奥多·泽尔丁(Theodore Zeldin),“布罗代尔之后”,《倾听者》,1981 年 11 月 5 日,第 11 页。 542.

43  Theodore Zeldin, ‘After Braudel’, The Listener, 5 November 1981, p. 542.

44   Galbraith,《导论》,第 4 页。

44  Galbraith, Introduction, p. 4.

第七章

Chapter Seven

历史知识的局限性

The limits of historical knowledge

历史学家对他们的研究对象提出了诸多主张,但任何历史叙述难道仅仅是作者对过去的个人解读吗?本章探讨了围绕历史研究本质及其价值的争论。实证主义者将历史视为一门科学,历史学家从确凿的证据中收集事实并得出有效的结论;而唯心主义者则强调,历史记录的不完整性和不完善性迫使历史学家运用相当程度的人类直觉和想象力。后现代主义者对这两种观点都提出了挑战,他们指出,不仅历史记录中,而且历史学家用来表达思想的语言本身,都蕴含着高度主观的价值观和假设。这是否意味着客观的历史叙述是不可能的?如果真是如此,那么对于质疑历史作为一门学科本身存在的哲学,学生又该如何理解呢?

Historians make many claims for their subject, but can any historical account amount to anything more than its author’s personal take on the past? This chapter looks at the debate surrounding the essential nature of historical work and therefore, to some extent, its value. The positivist position sees history as a form of science, in which historians amass facts from hard evidence and draw valid conclusions; the idealists on the other hand stress that the incomplete and imperfect nature of the historical record obliges the historian to employ a considerable degree of human intuition and imagination. Challenging both positions are the Postmodernists, who point to the highly subjective values and assumptions latent not just in the historical record but in the very language that historians use to express their ideas. Does this mean that objective historical accounts are an impossibility, and if so, what is the student to make of a philosophy that questions history’s very existence as a subject?

T本书前几章主要侧重于描述。它们旨在展现历史学家如何开展工作——他们的指导性假设、对证据的处理以及结论的呈现。现在,我们可以提出一些关于历史探究本质的根本性问题:我们对过去的认知究竟有多可靠?历史事实可以被视为既定事实吗?历史解释的权威性应该如何界定?历史学家能够保持客观吗?这些问题的答案将在下文中给出。各种观点层出不穷,引发了激烈的争论,其中许多争论都源于历史学家群体之外的批评。历史学界对于其研究成果的地位存在严重分歧。一方面,像G.R.埃尔顿这样的学者认为,面对证据保持谦逊,以及接受研究技术方面的训练,能够不断丰富某些历史知识;尽管专业人士乐于提出各种论点,但历史学仍然是一门不断积累的学科。 1而另一方面,西奥多·泽尔丁则认为,他(或任何历史学家)所能提供给读者的,仅仅是他对过去的个人见解,以及读者可以从中构建符合自身愿望和情感的个人见解的材料:“每个人都有权找到自己的视角”。 2虽然学术历史学家的主流观点倾向于埃尔顿的立场,但在这两个极端之间,每一种观点在历史学界都有其拥护者。历史学家们对自己究竟在做什么感到困惑——这种困惑通常不会体现在他们对重大解释问题自信满满的表态上。

The earlier chapters of this book were essentially descriptive. They were intended to show how historians go about their work – their guiding assumptions, their handling of the evidence and their presentation of conclusions. The point has now been reached where some fundamental questions about the nature of historical enquiry can be posed: how securely based is our knowledge of the past? Can the facts of history be taken as given? What authority should be attached to attempts at historical explanation? Can historians be objective? Answers to these questions have taken widely divergent forms and have occasioned intense debate, much of it fuelled by criticisms from outside the ranks of historians. The profession is deeply divided about the status of its findings. At one extreme there are those such as G.R. Elton who maintained that humility in the face of the evidence and training in the technicalities of research have steadily enlarged the stock of certain historical knowledge; notwithstanding the arguments which the professionals take such delight in, history is a cumulative discipline.1 At the other extreme, Theodore Zeldin holds that all he (or any historian) can offer his readers is his personal vision of the past, and the materials out of which they in turn can fashion a personal vision that corresponds to their own aspirations and sympathies: ‘everyone has the right to find his own perspective’.2 Although the weight of opinion among academic historians inclines towards Elton’s position, every viewpoint between the two extremes finds adherents within the profession. Historians are in a state of confusion about what exactly they are up to – a confusion not usually apparent in the confident manner with which they often pronounce on major problems of interpretation.

历史出版业是一个庞大的产业,每年都有成千上万的新书问世。这是否意味着我们离历史真相更近了一步,还是仅仅意味着有多少人愿意撰写历史,就有多少历史版本呢?(© James Leynse/CORBIS)

History publishing is a huge business, with thousands of new titles appearing every year. Does this mean that we are closer to the truth about the past, or does it just mean that there are as many histories as there are people prepared to write them? (© James Leynse/CORBIS)

I

历史是一门科学吗?

Is history a science?

提出此类关于历史或其他任何学科的问题,就等于进入了哲学的领域,因为问题的关键在于知识本身的本质;而自文艺复兴以来,历史知识的地位一直是哲学家们激烈争论的话题。大多数从事历史研究的历史学家——即使是那些愿意反思自身职业本质的历史学家——也很少关注这些争论,他们有理由认为,这些争论往往使问题更加模糊不清,而非更加清晰。³然而,历史学家之间激烈的争论也反映了哲学家之间一贯的激烈辩论传统。在十九世纪,围绕历史是否是一门科学的问题,两种截然相反的立场逐渐形成;直到20世纪60年代,当E.H.卡尔引起轰动时,这仍然是历史学中最重要的认识论问题。在当今时代,争论的焦点已经转移到语言的本质及其对过去和现在现实世界的影响程度。接下来,我们将依次探讨这两场争论——科学的争论和语言的争论。

To ask such questions about history or any other branch of learning is to enter the terrain of philosophy, since what is at issue is the nature of knowledge itself; and the status of historical knowledge has been hotly contested among philosophers since the Renaissance. Most working historians – even those disposed to reflect on the nature of their craft – take little account of these debates, believing with some justification that they often obscure rather than clarify the issues.3 But the intense disagreement that divides historians reflects a tradition of keen debate among philosophers. During the nineteenth century two sharply opposed positions crystallized around the question of whether history was a science; as recently as the 1960s, when E.H. Carr created such a stir, this was still the key epistemological issue in history. In our own day the ground of debate has shifted to the nature of language and the extent of its bearing on the real world, past and present. Both these debates – the scientific and the linguistic – will now be examined in turn.

认识论

epistemological

与知识论有关,即我们如何认识事物。

Relating to the theory of knowledge, how we know things.

关于历史与科学的争论核心问题始终在于:人类是否应该像其他自然现象一样被研究?对此问题持肯定态度的人致力于所有形式的、对人类和自然秩序进行严谨探究的方法论统一性。他们认为,历史采用与自然科学相同的程序,其研究成果也应以科学标准来评判。尽管他们对历史在多大程度上真正满足了这些要求可能存在分歧,但他们一致认为,历史知识只有在符合科学方法的前提下才是有效的。二十世纪以来,人们对科学本质的理解发生了根本性的改变,但十九世纪的观点则相当简单明了。所有科学知识的基础都是由不带偏见的“被动”观察者对现实进行细致的观察,而对同一现象反复观察的结果则是一种概括或“定律”,它能够解释所有已知的事实并阐明所观察到的规律。这种“归纳法”或“经验法”的假设是,概括是从数据中逻辑推导出来的,科学家们在进行研究时没有先入为主的观念,也没有道德上的牵绊。

The central question in the debate about history and science has always been whether humankind should be studied in the same way as other natural phenomena. Those who answer this question in the affirmative are committed to the methodological unity of all forms of disciplined enquiry into the human and natural order. They argue that history employs the same procedures as the natural sciences and that its findings should be judged by scientific standards. They may differ as to how far history has in fact fulfilled these requirements, but they are agreed that historical knowledge is valid only in so far as it conforms to scientific method. During the twentieth century conceptions of the nature of science have been radically modified, but the nineteenth-century view was straightforward enough. The basis of all scientific knowledge was the meticulous observation of reality by the disinterested, ‘passive’ observer, and the outcome of repeated observations of the same phenomenon was a generalization or ‘law’ that fitted all the known facts and explained the regularity observed. The assumption of this, the ‘inductive’ or ‘empirical’ method, was that generalizations flowed logically from the data, and that scientists approached their task without preconceptions and without moral involvement.

无私的

disinterested

中立、客观。不要与“漠不关心”混淆。

Neutral, objective. Not to be confused with ‘uninterested’.

实证主义:从事实归纳

Positivism: induction from facts

由于科学在纯粹研究和应用研究方面都取得了巨大进步,19世纪科学享有无与伦比的声望。如果科学方法能够揭开自然界的奥秘,那么它们是否也能成为理解社会和文化的关键呢?实证主义正是以19世纪的经典形式表达这一观点的知识哲学。它对历史实践的影响显而易见。历史学家的首要职责是积累关于过去的客观事实——这些事实需要通过批判性地分析原始资料来验证;而这些事实反过来又将决定如何解释或诠释过去。在这个过程中,历史学家的信仰和价值观无关紧要;他们唯一关注的是事实以及这些事实逻辑推导出的概括。19世纪最具影响力的实证主义哲学家奥古斯特·孔德认为,历史学家最终会揭示历史发展的“规律”。虽然偶尔仍会出现公开宣称信奉实证主义的人,如今人们更倾向于一种淡化的版本。后期的实证主义者认为,历史研究本身无法产生规律;相反,历史解释的本质在于正确运用从其他学科(例如经济学、社会学和心理学)中得出的、据称基于科学方法的概括性结论。

As a result of its immense strides in both pure and applied work, science enjoyed unrivalled prestige during the nineteenth century. If its methods unlocked the secrets of the natural world, might they not prove the key to understanding society and culture? Positivism is the name given to the philosophy of knowledge that expresses this approach in its classic, nineteenth-century form. Its implications for the practice of history are clear. The historian’s first duty is to accumulate factual knowledge about the past – facts that are verified by applying critical method to the primary sources; those facts will in turn determine how the past should be explained or interpreted. In this process the beliefs and values of historians are irrelevant; their sole concern is with the facts and the generalizations to which they logically lead. Auguste Comte, the most influential positivist philosopher of the nineteenth century, believed that historians would in due course uncover the ‘laws’ of historical development. Full-blown professions of positivist faith are still made occasionally,4 but nowadays a watered-down version is preferred. Latter-day positivists maintain that the study of history cannot generate its own laws; rather, the essence of historical explanation lies in the correct application of generalizations derived from other disciplines supposedly based on scientific method, such as economics, sociology and psychology.

理想主义:直觉和同理心

Idealism: intuition and empathy

第二种立场对应于被称为唯心主义的哲学流派,它否定了实证主义的基本假设。根据这种观点,人类事件必须与自然事件严格区分开来,因为探究者与其研究对象之间的同一性能够带来比自然科学家所能企及的更为全面的理解。自然事件只能从外部理解,而人类事件则具有一个本质的“内部”维度,它由行动者的意图、情感和心态构成。一旦探究者进入这个领域,归纳法的作用就十分有限。过去事件的现实必须通过与过去人物的想象性认同来把握,而这种认同依赖于直觉和同理心——这两种特质。这些观点在传统的科学方法论中没有立足之地。因此,在唯心主义者看来,历史知识本质上是主观的,它所揭示的真理更接近于艺术家意义上的真理,而非科学家意义上的真理。此外,历史学家关注的是个体独特的事件。社会科学的概括性结论并不适用于对过去的探究,历史本身也无法得出任何概括性结论或规律。

The second position, which corresponds to the school of philosophy known as idealism, rejects the fundamental assumption of positivism. According to this view, human events must be carefully distinguished from natural events because the identity between the enquirer and his or her subject matter opens the way to a fuller understanding than anything that the natural scientist can aspire to. Whereas natural events can only be understood from the outside, human events have an essential ‘inside’ dimension composed of the intentions, feelings and mentality of the actors. Once the enquirer strays into this realm the inductive method is of limited use. The reality of past events must instead be apprehended by an imaginative identification with the people of the past, which depends on intuition and empathy – qualities that have no place in the classical view of scientific method. According to idealists, therefore, historical knowledge is inherently subjective, and the truths that it uncovers are more akin to truth in the artist’s sense than the scientist’s. Furthermore, historians are concerned with the individual, unique event. The generalizations of the social sciences are not applicable to the study of the past, nor does history yield any generalizations or laws of its own.

这种观点对于十九世纪历史主义的拥护者来说可谓顺理成章(见第一章),他们要求每个时代都必须以其自身的语境来理解,并且他们务实地强调由“伟人”的行动和意图构成的政治叙事。兰克作为严谨史料批判倡导者的盛名,有时掩盖了他对沉思和想象的重视:“在批判的辛劳之后,”他坚持认为,“直觉是必要的”。⁵在英语世界,唯心主义立场最具原创性和最精辟的阐述者是哲学家兼历史学家R.G.科林伍德。在他身后出版的《历史的观念》(1946)一书中,他认为一切历史本质上都是思想史,历史学家的任务是在自己的头脑中重现过去个人的思想和意图。科林伍德的影响在当今反对“科学”理论的人士中显而易见,例如泽尔丁,他痛惜历史学沦为“咖啡馆,用来讨论其他学科在时间维度上的发现”,并呼吁历史学关注个体及其情感。 6 相反,研究集体行为(例如投票或消费)的历史学家往往更认真地对待历史学的科学性,因为在这些领域,规律性显而易见,有时可以构成可靠且重要的概括的基础。

This outlook came naturally to the nineteenth-century proponents of historicism (see Chapter 1) with their demand that every age be understood in its own terms, and their practical emphasis on political narrative made up of the actions and intentions of ‘great men’. Ranke’s fame as the champion of rigorous source criticism has sometimes been allowed to obscure the emphasis that he laid on contemplation and imagination: ‘after the labour of criticism’, he insisted, ‘intuition is required’.5 In the English-speaking world the most original and sophisticated exponent of the idealist position has been the philosopher and historian R.G. Collingwood. In his posthumously published The Idea of History (1946), he maintained that all history is essentially the history of thought, and that the historian’s task is to re-enact in his or her own mind the thoughts and intentions of individuals in the past. Collingwood’s influence is evident in the case of present-day opponents of ‘scientific’ theory such as Zeldin, who deplores the tendency for history to become ‘a coffee-house in which to discuss the findings of other disciplines in time perspective’ and pleads for a history concerned with individuals and their emotions.6 Conversely, history’s scientific pretensions tend to be taken much more seriously by historians of collective behaviour – voting or consumption for example – because in these spheres regularities are evident that can sometimes form the basis of firm and significant generalizations.

但实证主义与唯心主义之间悬而未决的冲突所带来的影响,远不止于传统政治史与新兴的经济史和社会史领域之间的区别。它有助于解释为何历史学家们在几乎所有工作环节——从原始资料评估到最终的诠释工作——都存在如此多的分歧。

But the implications of the unresolved clash between positivism and idealism go much further than the distinction between traditional political history and the more recent fields of economic and social history. They help to explain why there is so much disagreement among historians about the nature of virtually every aspect of their work from primary source evaluation through to the finished work of interpretation.

II

一份不完整且有污点的记录

An incomplete and tainted record

十九世纪新一代学院派历史学家的职业自尊很大程度上建立在他们为寻找和批判原始资料而完善的严谨方法之上。他们建立的准则自此指导着历史学家的实践,以至于现代历史知识的整个体系都建立在对原始文献的细致评估之上。然而,“忠于你的资料”这条准则远比表面看起来复杂得多,怀疑论者抓住了许多问题不放。首先,历史学家所能获得的原始资料是不完整的记录,这不仅是因为大量资料因意外或人为因素而遗失,更根本的原因在于,许多事件根本没有留下任何物质痕迹。这一点在思维过程方面尤为突出,无论是有意识的还是无意识的。任何历史人物,无论多么杰出或能言善辩,都从未记录下超过其思想和假设的一小部分;而且,一些最具影响力的观点往往是那些被视为理所当然、因而未被文献提及的观点。其次,史料因其作者不够纯粹的意图而受到玷污,更阴险的是,它们还受到当时当地人们固有观念的局限。“所谓的历史‘史料’只记录了那些被认为足够有趣而值得记录的事实”;或者更确切地说,历史记录永远有利于统治阶级,而统治阶级始终炮制了绝大多数现存史料。在某些马克思主义圈子里,这种论调导致了对了解过去可能性的彻底怀疑,历史也被弃置于知识的垃圾堆。

Much of the professional self-esteem of the new breed of academic historians in the nineteenth century was based on the rigorous techniques that they had perfected for the location and criticism of primary sources. The canons they established have governed the practice of historians ever since, so that the whole edifice of modern historical knowledge is founded on the painstaking evaluation of original documents. But the injunction ‘Be true to your sources’ is less straightforward than it looks, and sceptics have seized on a number of problem areas. First, the primary sources available to the historian are an incomplete record, not only because so much has perished by accident or design but in a more fundamental sense because a great deal that happened left no material trace whatever. This is particularly true of mental processes, both conscious and unconscious. No historical character, however prominent and articulate, has ever set down more than a tiny proportion of his or her thoughts and assumptions; and often some of the most influential beliefs are those that are taken for granted and therefore are not discussed in the documents. Second, the sources are tainted by the less than pure intentions of their authors and – more insidiously – by their confinement within the assumptions of men and women in that time and place. ‘The so-called “sources” of history record only such facts as appeared sufficiently interesting to record’;7 or, more polemically, the historical record is forever rigged in favour of the ruling class, which at all times has created the vast majority of the surviving sources. In some Marxist circles this contention has led to an absolute scepticism about the possibility of knowledge of the past, and history has been put on the intellectual scrap-heap.

这两种批评都有一定的道理,但那些将其推向极端的人则暴露出对历史学家实际工作方式的无知。研究者能从一系列文献中学到的东西并非仅限于其字面含义;首先,要仔细审查这些含义是否存在偏见,然后以此为基础进行推断。如果运用得当,批判性方法能够使历史学家既考虑到作者的蓄意歪曲,也考虑到其无意识的本能反应——用拉斐尔·塞缪尔(Raphael Samuel)的话来说,就是“逆着文献的字面意思”提取意义。8许多针对历史方法的批评都指向了这一点这种观点基于一个常见的误解,即原始资料是证人的证词——证人和其他证人一样,都会犯错,但在这种情况下,他们无法接受交叉质询。然而,正如第五章所述,历史学家的大量文献资料是由记录本身构成的,这些记录本身就构成了所研究的事件或过程:例如,对格莱斯顿的性格或中世纪大法官府的行政机制感兴趣的历史学家,并不依赖于当时的报道和印象(尽管这些报道和印象可能很有趣);他们可以以格莱斯顿本人的私人信件和日记,或大法官府日常运作过程中产生的记录为基础进行叙述。此外,人们赋予原始资料的重要性,很大程度上并非源于作者的意图,而是源于那些与作者目的无关的信息,这些信息却可能为我们提供洞察过去某个原本难以触及的方面的一丝曙光。简而言之,历史学家并不受文献撰写时所采用的思维模式的束缚。9

There is an element of truth in both these criticisms, but those who push them to extremes betray an ignorance of how historians actually work. What a researcher can learn from a set of documents is not confined to its explicit meaning; that meaning is first of all scrutinized for bias and then used as the basis for inference. When properly applied, the critical method enables the historian to make allowances for both deliberate distortion and the unthinking reflexes of the writer – to extract meaning ‘against the grain of the documentation’, in Raphael Samuel’s useful phrase.8 Much of the criticism directed against historical method rests on the common misconception that primary sources are the testimonies of witnesses – who like all witnesses are fallible but in this instance are not available for cross-examination. Yet, as was shown in Chapter 5, a great deal of the historian’s documentation is made up of record sources which themselves constitute the event or process under investigation: historians interested, say, in the character of Gladstone or the administrative machinery of the medieval Chancery are not dependent on contemporary reports and impressions (interesting though these may be); they can base their accounts on the private correspondence and diaries of Gladstone himself, or on the records generated in the course of the Chancery’s day-to-day business. Moreover, much of the importance attached to primary sources derives not from the intentions of the writer but from information that was incidental to his or her purpose and yet may provide a flash of insight into an otherwise inaccessible aspect of the past. The historian, in short, is not confined by the categories of thought in which the documents were composed.9

大量的记录

A surfeit of records

但认为历史学家只需追随文献的指引这一观点,还存在第三个更为棘手的难题,而这取决于现有史料的浩瀚。诚然,这些史料可能并不完整;然而,除了极少数遥远的时期和地点外,它们的存世量都极其庞大,令人难以处理。这个问题直到本世纪才被人们所关注。十九世纪的历史学家,尤其是像阿克顿勋爵这样持实证主义思想的学者,认为历史写作的最终定论在于,当原始研究揭示出所有事实的完整集合时;这些事实中许多可能看似晦涩难懂,但最终都会揭示真相。这些学者由于对历史内容和原始史料的理解过于狭隘,而忽视了自身方法的局限性:当阿克顿在十九世纪末写道“几乎所有将会出现的证据现在都可以获取”时,指的仅仅是大量的国家档案。自阿克顿时代以来,历史的研究对象已大大扩展,大量19世纪历史学家几乎不了解的史料的重要性也日益凸显。已确立。面对历史理论上可以涵盖的几乎无限的内容,现代历史学家不得不对历史“事实”的概念进行严格审查。

But there is a third and more formidable difficulty in the notion that historians simply follow where the documents lead, and this turns on the profusion of the available sources. These sources may, it is true, represent a very incomplete record; yet for all but very remote periods and places they survive in completely unmanageable quantities. This is a problem that has been confronted only during the present century. Nineteenth-century historians, especially those of a positivist turn of mind such as Lord Acton, believed that finality in historical writing would be attained when primary research had brought to light a complete assemblage of the facts; many of these facts might seem obscure and trivial, but they would all tell in the end. These writers were blinded to the limitations of their method by the very narrow way in which they conceived both the content of history and a primary source: when Acton at the end of the nineteenth century wrote, ‘nearly all the evidence that will ever appear is accessible now’,10 he was referring only to the great collections of state records. Since Acton’s day the subject matter of history has been vastly enlarged, and the significance of whole bodies of source material whose existence nineteenth-century historians were scarcely aware of has been established. Faced with the virtually limitless content that history could in theory embrace, modern historians have been compelled to subject the notion of historical ‘fact’ to severe scrutiny.

什么是事实?

What are facts?

有人反对历史中存在“事实”的概念,理由是这些事实的论证标准不足:大多数被认为是历史“事实”的内容实际上依赖于推断。历史学家会解读字里行间的含义,或者从几个相互矛盾的线索中推断出真实发生的事情,或者他们可能仅仅证明作者很可能是在说真话。但在所有这些情况下,历史学家都无法像物理学家那样直接观察事实。历史学家通常没有时间理会这类批评。形式化的论证可能超出了他们的能力范围;重要的是推断的有效性。实际上,历史学家花费大量时间来质疑和完善那些可以从史料中合理得出的推断,可以说,历史事实正是建立在这些推断之上,而这些推断的有效性已被专家广泛接受。他们不禁要问,还有谁能要求更多呢?

Objection is sometimes made to the idea of ‘facts’ in history on the grounds that they rest on inadequate standards of proof: most of what pass for the ‘facts’ of history actually depend on inference. Historians read between the lines, or they work out what really happened from several contradictory indications, or they may do no more than establish that the writer was probably telling the truth. But in none of these cases can the historian observe the facts in the way that a physicist can. Historians generally have little time for this kind of critique. Formal proof may be beyond their reach; what matters is the validity of the inferences. In practice historians spend a good deal of time disputing and refining the inferences that can be legitimately drawn from the sources, and the facts of history can be said to rest on inferences whose validity is widely accepted by expert opinion. Who, they ask with some justice, could reasonably ask for more?

历史学家们更担忧的是,通过这种方式可以验证的关于过去的事实似乎无穷无尽。如果人类的整个过去都属于历史学家的研究范围,那么关于过去的每一个事实都可以说值得我们关注。但历史学家们并非基于这种假设开展研究——即使是那些专攻某个特定时期某个有限方面的专家也不会。实际上,与此类问题相关的事实数量没有上限,而决心完全以事实为指导的历史学家永远无法得出任何结论。因此,那种认为历史学家会在“客观存在”的事实面前隐去自我的常识性观点(也是实证主义的核心信条)是一种错觉。事实并非既定的,而是经过选择的。尽管表面看来如此,但事实从未真正独立地表达自身。无论历史叙述多么详尽,无论其作者多么致力于重现过去,它都绝非源于现成的史料;许多事件因被视为琐碎而被省略,而那些最终被纳入叙述的事件,往往也是通过某个特定参与者或一小群人的视角来展现的。分析史学,其作者的目的是提炼出最具解释力的因素,则更倾向于……显然,历史写作具有选择性。各种历史写作的成败,既取决于它保留了什么,也取决于它省略了什么。因此,像E.H.卡尔那样区分过去的史实和历史事实是有意义的。前者是无限的,其全部内容是不可知的;后者则是历代历史学家为了历史重建和解释而做出的选择:“历史事实不可能完全客观,因为它们之所以成为历史事实,正是因为历史学家赋予了它们意义。” 11

Historians are much more troubled by the implications of the apparently limitless number of facts about the past that can be verified in this way. If the entire past of humankind falls within the historian’s scope, then every fact about that past may be said to have some claim on our attention. But historians do not proceed on this assumption – not even the specialist in some limited aspect of a well-defined period. There is in practice no limit to the number of facts that have a bearing on such a problem, and the historian who resolved to be guided solely by the facts would never reach any conclusion. The common-sense idea (and the central tenet of positivism) that historians efface themselves in front of the facts ‘out there’ is therefore an illusion. The facts are not given, they are selected. Despite appearances, they are never left to speak for themselves. However detailed a historical narrative may be, and however committed its author to the re-creation of the past, it never springs from the sources ready-made; many events are omitted as trivial, and those that do find a place in the narrative tend to be seen through the eyes of one particular participant or a small group. Analytical history, in which the writer’s intention is to abstract the factors with greatest explanatory power, is more obviously selective. Historical writing of all kinds is determined as much by what it leaves out as by what it puts in. That is why it makes sense to distinguish with E.H. Carr between the facts of the past and the facts of history. The former are limitless and in their entirety unknowable; the latter represent a selection made by successive historians for the purpose of historical reconstruction and explanation: ‘The facts of history cannot be purely objective, since they become facts of history only in virtue of the significance attached to them by the historian’.11

事实的选择与剔除

The selection and rejection of facts

如果选择历史事实,那么明确选择这些事实的标准就至关重要。是否存在普遍适用的原则,还是仅仅出于个人喜好?自兰克时代以来,一种广为流传的观点认为,历史学家致力于揭示所研究事件的本质。纳米尔用比喻的方式表达了这一观点:

If historical facts are selected, it is important to identify the criteria employed in selecting them. Are there commonly shared principles, or is it a matter of personal whim? One answer, much favoured since Ranke’s day, is that historians are concerned to reveal the essence of the events under consideration. Namier expressed this idea metaphorically:

历史学家的职能类似于画家,而非照相机;其职责是发现并展现事物,甄别并强调事物的本质,而不是不加区分地复制所有映入眼帘的事物。12

The function of the historian is akin to that of the painter and not of the photographic camera; to discover and set forth, to single out and stress that which is of the nature of the thing, and not to reproduce indiscriminately all that meets the eye.12

但这不过是对原问题的重述,因为“事物的本质”究竟该如何确定?如果坦率地承认历史学家所采用的意义标准是由他或她试图解决的历史问题的性质所决定的,那么就不会那么令人困惑了。正如M.M. Postan所说:

But this amounts to little more than a restatement of the original question, for how is the ‘nature of the thing’ to be determined? It makes for less confusion if it is admitted outright that the standards of significance applied by the historian are defined by the nature of the historical problem that he or she is seeking to solve. As M.M. Postan put it:

历史事实,即使是那些在历史术语中被认为是“确凿无疑”的事实,也只不过是相关性:是过去现象的各个方面,恰好与历史研究者在研究时的关注点相关。

The facts of history, even those which in historical parlance figure as ‘hard and fast’, are no more than relevances: facets of past phenomena which happen to relate to the preoccupations of historical inquirers at the time of their inquiries.

随着新的历史事实被纳入正典,旧的事实也随之过时,但正如波斯坦略带讽刺地指出,它们只存在于那些充斥着“前史事实”的教科书中。13

As new historical facts are accepted into the canon, so old ones pass out of currency except, as Postan mischievously remarks, in textbooks that are full of ‘ex-facts’.13

方面

facets

特点、特征。

Features, characteristics.

这种观点带有修辞上的夸张成分。历史知识中充斥着诸如伦敦大火或查理一世被处决等事实,这些事实的地位实际上无可争议,而像埃尔顿这样的批评家正是抓住这一点来否定历史事实与政治事实之间的区别。他们认为,历史事实会引入一种危险的主观因素。14正如任何接触过专业历史学家作品的人都知道的那样,历史写作从来都不是完全由这些无可辩驳的事实构成,甚至也不是主要由这些事实构成。选择纳入哪些事实,很大程度上取决于历史学家写作的目的。

There is an element of rhetorical exaggeration about this view. Historical knowledge abounds in facts such as the Great Fire of London or the execution of Charles I whose status is for all practical purposes unassailable, and critics such as Elton have seized on this point to discredit the distinction between the facts of the past and the facts of history, which they feel introduces a dangerous element of subjectivity.14 But, as anyone who has sampled the work of professional historians knows, historical writing is never composed entirely, or even principally, of these unassailable facts. The decision whether to include this set of facts rather than that is closely affected by the purpose that informs the historian’s work.

显然,很大程度上取决于历史学家在研究之初心中怀揣的问题。正如第五章所述,选择丰富且此前未被发掘的史料,并以其引发的问题为指导,不失为一种可取之道(见第120-121页)。这种方法的难点在于,没有人会真正以完全开放的心态去研究史料——任何研究之前对标准二手文献的研读都会造成这种影响。即便没有提出具体问题,研究者也会带着某些假设去研究史料,而这些假设很可能是不假思索地反映了当前的正统观点,最终的研究结果也仅仅是在既有的解释框架内对细节进行澄清或调整重点。

Clearly, then, much depends on the kind of questions that the historian has in mind at the outset of research. As was discussed in Chapter 5, there is something to be said for selecting a rich and previously untapped vein of source material and being guided by whatever questions it throws up (see pp. 120–21). The difficulty with this method is that nobody actually approaches the sources with a completely open mind – the grounding in the standard secondary literature which precedes any research will see to that. Even if no specific questions have been formulated, the researcher will study the sources with certain assumptions that are only too likely to be an unthinking reflection of current orthodoxy, and the result will be merely a clarification of detail or a modification of emphasis within the prevailing framework of interpretation.

历史假设

Historical hypotheses

当历史学家提出一个清晰明确的假设,并使其能够与证据进行检验时,历史理解的重大进展就更有可能实现。答案可能与假设不符,此时假设必须被舍弃或修正,但仅仅是提出新的问题本身就具有重要的意义,它能促使历史学家关注熟悉问题中不为人知的方面,以及在精心研究的史料中发现意想不到的数据。例如,考虑一下英国革命的起源。19世纪的历史学家将其视为政治和宗教意识形态冲突的问题,并据此从大量关于17世纪早期英国的现存资料中进行选择。从20世纪30年代开始,越来越多的学者试图用马克思主义的视角来分析这场冲突,因此,与乡绅、贵族和城市资产阶级的经济状况相关的新材料变得至关重要。近年来,一些历史学家采用了一种“纳米耶式”的方法,将宪政冲突和军事冲突视为……的体现。政治派别之间的竞争:因此,裙带关系网络和宫廷阴谋如今发挥了更大的作用。15关键不在于马克思主义或纳米尔主义的立场构成对战争全面解释,而在于每一种假设都凸显了某些先前被忽视的因素,这些因素将对未来的任何解释产生影响。马克·布洛赫(Marc Bloch)本人的研究也是基于假设展开的,他清楚地阐述了这个问题:

Significant advances in historical understanding are more likely to be achieved when a historian puts forward a clearly formulated hypothesis that can be tested against the evidence. The answers may not correspond to the hypothesis, which must then be discarded or modified, but merely to ask new questions has the important effect of alerting historians to unfamiliar aspects of familiar problems and to unsuspected data in well-worked sources. Consider, for example, the origins of the English Civil War. Nineteenth-century historians approached this as a problem of competing political and religious ideologies, and they selected accordingly from the great mass of surviving information about early seventeenth-century England. From the 1930s onwards an increasing number of scholars sought to test a Marxist approach to the conflict, and as a result new material which related to the economic fortunes of the gentry, the aristocracy and the urban bourgeoisie became critically important. More recently several historians have employed a ‘Namierite’ approach in which the constitutional and military conflicts are seen as the expression of rivalry between political factions: hence the networks of patronage and the intrigues at court are now coming more into play.15 The point is not that the Marxist or Namierite position amounts to a rounded explanation of the war but rather that each hypothesis has brought into focus certain previously neglected factors which will have a bearing on any future interpretation. Marc Bloch, whose own work proceeded on the basis of hypotheses, put the issue clearly:

任何历史研究都假定探究从一开始就有方向。起初,必须有指导精神。即使假设被动观察是可能的,它也从未对任何科学做出过任何有益的贡献。16

Every historical research supposes that the inquiry has a direction at the very first step. In the beginning, there must be the guiding spirit. Mere passive observation, even supposing such a thing were possible, has never contributed anything productive to any science.16

对科学本质的新理解

A new understanding of the nature of science

值得注意的是,如今的科学家们大多也认同这一点。实证主义理论仍然主导着普通人对科学的认知,但在科学界却已不再具有足够的说服力。归纳思维和被动观察不再被视​​为科学方法的标志。相反,无论是对自然界还是人类世界的观察,都具有选择性,因此都预设了一个假设或理论,无论它多么不连贯。在卡尔·波普尔颇具影响力的观点中,科学知识并非由定律构成,而是由最佳的现有假设构成;它是暂时的,而非确定的知识。我们的理解是通过提出超越现有证据的新假设而推进的,这些假设必须接受进一步观察的检验,而这些观察要么会驳斥假设,要么会证实假设。由于假设超越了现有证据,它们必然包含灵光一闪的洞察力或富有想象力的飞跃,而且往往越大胆越好。因此,科学方法是假设与反驳尝试之间的对话,或者说是创造性思维与批判性思维之间的对话。17对历史学家来说,这比它所取代的科学定义要令人欣喜得多。

Significantly, scientists today would themselves mostly agree. The positivist theory still dominates the lay person’s view of science, but it no longer carries much conviction among the scientific community. Inductive thought and passive observation have ceased to be regarded as the hallmarks of scientific method. Rather, all observation whether of the natural or the human world is selective and therefore presupposes a hypothesis or theory, however incoherent it may be. In Karl Popper’s influential view, scientific knowledge consists not of laws but of the best available hypotheses; it is provisional rather than certain knowledge. Our understanding advances through the formulation of new hypotheses that go beyond the evidence currently available and must be tested against further observation, which will either refute or corroborate the hypothesis. And because hypotheses go beyond the evidence, they necessarily involve a flash of insight or an imaginative leap, often the bolder the better. Scientific method, then, is a dialogue between hypothesis and attempted refutation, or between creative and critical thought.17 To historians this is a much more congenial definition of science than the one it has replaced.

卡尔·波普尔(1902–94)

Karl Popper (1902–94)

英国科学家和哲学家波普尔反对以归纳法作为科学的基础,他认为科学观察的正确作用是反驳现有的理论,而不是试图证实它们。

British scientist and philosopher. Popper rejected induction as a basis for science and argued that the proper role of scientific observation was to refute existing theories rather than to try to confirm them.

想象力的重要性

The importance of imagination

尽管历史学和自然科学在某些基本方法论假设上可能存在交集,但两者之间仍然存在重要的差异。首先,历史学允许……发挥更大的作用。历史中的想象力。它绝非仅限于提出假设,而是贯穿于历史学家的整个思维过程。毕竟,历史学家不仅致力于解释过去,他们还力求重构或重现过去——展现人们如何体验生活以及如何理解生活——而这需要对过去的思维方式和氛围进行富有想象力的探索。正如约瑟夫·C·米勒所说:

But although history and the natural sciences may converge in some of their fundamental methodological assumptions, important differences remain. First, far greater play is allowed to the imagination in history. It is by no means confined to the formulation of hypotheses but permeates the historian’s thinking. Historians are not, after all, only concerned to explain the past; they also seek to reconstruct or re-create it – to show how life was experienced as well as how it may be understood – and this requires an imaginative engagement with the mentality and atmosphere of the past. As Joseph C. Miller puts it:

历史将数据转化为证据,并非通过追求数据的技术属性,而是通过一种独特的直觉性、人文主义和整体性的策略来取代科学的实验方法。18

History turns data into evidence not by pursuing the technical attributes of data but by substituting a distinctively intuitive, humanistic, holistic strategy for the experimental method of science.18

科林伍德认为一切历史都是思想史,这种观点过于局限了历史学的研究范围。但不可否认的是,对文献资料的评价取决于对其背后思想的重构;在取得任何其他成就之前,历史学家必须首先尝试进入文献创作者的思维世界。

In maintaining that all history is the history of thought, Collingwood unduly confined the scope of the subject. But it is certainly true that the evaluation of documentary sources depends on a reconstruction of the thought behind them; before anything else can be achieved, the historian must first try to enter the mental world of those who created the sources.

此外,尽管从兰克到科林伍德的理想主义者过分强调“独特”事件,但个体无疑是历史研究的合法且必要的对象。个体行为的多样性和不可预测性(与群体行为的规律性相对)要求研究者具备同理心和直觉,以及逻辑和批判性思维能力。科学家通常可以通过实验来获取数据,而历史学家却常常面临证据的缺失,他们只能通过培养对可能发生之事的敏锐感知来弥补这些缺失。这种敏锐感知源于对现存文献的深入研究,并在研究过程中逐渐形成一幅想象图景。在所有这些方面,想象力对历史学家都至关重要。它不仅能产生富有成效的假设,还能用于重构过去的事件和情境,并以此来检验这些假设。

Furthermore, although idealists from Ranke to Collingwood have placed an exaggerated emphasis on ‘unique’ events, individuals are certainly a legitimate and necessary object of historical study, and the variety and unpredictability of individual behaviour (as opposed to the regularities of mass behaviour) demand qualities of empathy and intuition in the enquirer as well as logical and critical skills. And whereas scientists can often create their own data by experiment, historians are time and again confronted by gaps in the evidence which they can make good only by developing a sensitivity as to what might have happened, derived from an imagined picture that has taken shape in the course of becoming immersed in the surviving documentation. In all these ways imagination is vital to the historian. It not only generates fruitful hypotheses; it is also deployed in the reconstruction of past events and situations by which those hypotheses are tested.

达成共识是不可能的

The impossibility of consensus

历史学与自然科学的第二个,也是更为关键的区别在于,历史学家提出的解释的地位远低于科学解释。科学解释或许只是暂时的假设,但它们大多是所有有资格评判的人都认同的假设;它们或许有一天会被取代,但就目前而言,它们仍然是可靠的。事实代表了最接近真相的近似值,并被普遍认可。然而,在历史解释方面,学术界却鲜有共识。已知的史实或许毋庸置疑,但如何解读或解释这些史实却是一个永无休止的争论,正如我举的英国革命的例子所示。“派系假说”并未取代“阶级冲突假说”或“意识形态假说”;所有这些假说都依然存在,并受到不同历史学家的不同重视。

The second and even more critical distinction to be made between history and the natural sciences is that the standing of explanations put forward by historians is very much inferior to that of scientific explanation. It may be that scientific explanations are no more than provisional hypotheses, but they are for the most part hypotheses on which all people qualified to judge are in agreement; they may be superseded one day, but for the time being they represent the nearest possible approximation to the truth and are commonly recognized as such. In matters of historical explanation, on the other hand, a scholarly consensus scarcely exists. The known facts may not be in doubt, but how to interpret or explain them is a matter of endless debate, as my example of the English Civil War illustrated. The ‘faction hypothesis’ has not superseded the ‘class-conflict hypothesis’ or the ‘ideology hypothesis’; all are very much alive and receive varying emphasis from different historians.

这种意见分歧的原因在于历史变迁的复杂性。我们在第六章中看到,个人和集体行为都受到诸多相互矛盾的因素的影响。这里需要强调的是,每一种历史情境都是独一无二的,因为其因果因素的具体组合是不可复制的。例如,有人可能会认为,欧洲列强在20世纪50年代和60年代从其大部分非洲殖民地撤军的原因在三十多个不同的地区是共通的。但这仅仅是一种非常笼统的说法。殖民势力和民族主义运动的实力因国家而异,取决于该国对宗主国的价值、其社会变迁的经历、当地欧洲裔人口的规模等等。因此,在实践中,每一种情境都必须重新审视,很可能得出不同的结论,因此,构建一个全面的历史因果关系理论的基础并不存在。

The reason for this diversity of opinion lies in the complex texture of historical change. We saw in Chapter 6 how both individual and collective behaviour are influenced by an immense range of contrasting factors. What needs stressing here is that each historical situation is unique in the sense that the exact configuration of causal factors is unrepeatable. It might be argued, for instance, that the reasons why the European powers withdrew from most of their African colonies during the 1950s and 1960s were common to some thirty-odd different territories. But this would be valid only as a very broad-brush statement. The respective strength of the colonial power and the nationalist movement varied from one country to another according to its value to the metropolis, its experience of social change, the size of the resident European community, and so on.19 In practice, therefore, each situation has to be investigated afresh, with the strong possibility of different findings, and as a result the basis for a comprehensive theory of historical causation simply does not exist.

多种假设

A multiplicity of hypotheses

如果能够确定地解释特定事件,或许这一切都无关紧要。但即便如此,历史学家也难以实现这一更为实际的目标。问题在于,证据永远不够充分和明确,不足以让我们毫无疑问地做出因果解释。即使是那些记录最详实的事件,也同样如此。以第一次世界大战的起源为例,史料提供了大量证据,涵盖了各方的动机、外交举措的顺序、公众舆论状况、军备竞赛的螺旋式上升、所有相关国家的相对经济实力等等。但仅凭这些证据,我们无法了解所有这些不同因素的相对重要性,也无法全面展现它们之间的相互作用。20 在许多情况下,史料根本没有直接涉及历史解释的核心问题。一些影响人类行为的因素,例如自然环境或神经质和非理性,是潜意识中感知到的;另一些因素可能被直接体验到,但却没有在史料中体现出来。因此,历史解释的问题不能仅仅依靠史料来解决。历史学家还会受到他们对特定历史背景下可能性的直觉、对人性的解读以及对逻辑一致性的追求的指导。在这些方面,他们不太可能达成一致。因此,在任何时候都可能存在几种不同的假设。布克哈特在其著作《意大利文艺复兴时期的文明》(1860年)的序言中坦率地承认了这个问题:

Perhaps this would not matter if certainty was attainable in explaining particular events. But this more modest objective eludes historians as well. The problem here is that the evidence is never sufficiently full and unambiguous to place a causal interpretation beyond doubt. This is true of even the best-documented events. In a case like the origins of the First World War, the sources provide ample evidence of the motives of the protagonists, the sequence of diplomatic moves, the state of public opinion, the upward spiral of the arms race, the relative economic strength of all the nations involved, and so on. But what the evidence alone cannot do is tell us the relative importance of all these varied factors, or present a comprehensive picture of how they interacted with each other.20 In many instances the sources do not directly address the central issues of historical explanation at all. Some of the influences on human conduct, such as the natural environment or the neurotic and irrational, are apprehended subconsciously; others may be experienced directly but not disclosed in the sources. Questions of historical explanation cannot, therefore, be resolved solely by reference to the evidence. Historians are also guided by their intuitive sense of what was possible in a given historical context, by their reading of human nature, and by the claims of intellectual coherence. In each of these areas they are unlikely to concur. As a result, several different hypotheses can hold the field at any one time. Burckhardt frankly acknowledged the problem in the Preface to his Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860):

在我们涉足的广阔海洋中,可能的道路和方向数不胜数;同样的研究成果,如果落入他人之手,不仅会得到截然不同的处理和应用,而且很可能会得出截然不同的结论。21

In the wide ocean upon which we venture, the possible ways and directions are many; and the same studies which have served for this work might easily, in other hands, not only receive a wholly different treatment and application, but lead also to essentially different conclusions.21

在历史学领域,无可争议的知识范围既小得多,也远不如自然科学领域重要。这是一个至关重要的局限性,而当今历史学“客观性”的倡导者们却未能正视这一局限性。22

The area of knowledge beyond dispute is both smaller and much less significant in history than it is in the natural sciences. This is a crucial limitation which is not properly confronted by present-day champions of ‘objectivity’ in history.22

布克哈特(1818–97)

Burckhardt (1818–97)

雅各布·布克哈特,瑞士历史学家。他被认为是“文艺复兴”(法语:重生)一词的创造者,用来描述十五世纪意大利的文化变革和古典形式的复兴。

Jakob Burckhardt, Swiss historian. He is credited with having coined the term ‘Renaissance’ (French: ‘rebirth’) to describe the cultural changes and revival of classical form in fifteenth-century Italy.

III

历史学家作为选择者

The historian as selector

将历史与自然科学进行比较或许有些牵强,因为大多数人对科学知识地位的假设是十九世纪实证主义的过时残余;事实上,科学知识远没有人们通常认为的那么确定和客观。但这种比较确实揭示了我们对过去的认知在多大程度上取决于历史学家自由做出的选择。那种认为历史学家的职责仅仅是揭示过去并展示其发现的常识性观念站不住脚。历史探究的本质在于选择——选择“相关的”史料、“历史的”事实和“重要的”解释。在研究的每一个阶段,探究的方向和结果都同样取决于探究者以及史料本身。显然,将事实与史料生硬地割裂开来是行不通的。实证主义者所要求的价值在历史学中行不通。从这个意义上讲,历史知识并非也不可能是“客观的”(即完全由研究对象的经验推导而来)。这并不意味着,正如怀疑论者可能认为的那样,历史知识因此是任意的或虚幻的。但这确实意味着,在我们能够对历史知识的真实状态得出任何结论之前,必须仔细评估历史学家自身的假设和态度。

This comparison between history and natural sciences is perhaps somewhat contrived, given that the assumptions most people make about the standing of scientific knowledge are an outdated residue of nineteenth-century positivism; scientific knowledge is in reality less certain and less objective than is commonly supposed. But what the comparison does bring out is the extent to which our knowledge of the past depends on choices freely exercised by the historian. The common-sense notion that the business of historians is simply to uncover the past and display what they have found will not stand up. The essence of historical enquiry is selection – of ‘relevant’ sources, of ‘historical’ facts and of ‘significant’ interpretations. At every stage both the direction and the destination of the enquiry are determined as much by the enquirer as by the data. Clearly, the rigid segregation of fact and value demanded by the positivists is unworkable in history. In this sense, historical knowledge is not, and cannot be, ‘objective’ (that is, empirically derived in its entirety from the object of the enquiry). This does not mean, as sceptics might suppose, that it is therefore arbitrary or illusory. But it does follow that the assumptions and attitudes of historians themselves have to be carefully assessed before we can come to any conclusion about the real status of historical knowledge.

经验主义

empiricism

从实验和经验而非理论原则出发进行推理。虽然严格的科学实验是一种经验主义,但基于定义模糊的“常识”的演绎推理也是一种经验主义,这使得经验主义的理论地位变得模糊不清。

Reasoning from experiment and experience, rather than from theoretical principles. Although strict scientific experimentation is a form of empiricism, so too is deduction based on ill-defined ‘common sense’, which can lend empiricism an ambiguous intellectual status.

历史学家在语境中的作用

The historian in context

在某种程度上,这些标准可以被视为历史学家个人的专属。研究经历是个人化的,而且往往非常私密,没有两个历史学家会对他们的研究材料产生完全相同的想象。正如理查德·科布所说,“历史写作是个人个性最充分、最有价值的表达方式之一”。 23然而,无论历史学家身处多么超凡脱俗的学术氛围,他们也像其他人一样,会受到自身社会假设和价值观的影响。将历史诠释视为受社会经验而非个人经验塑造的,会更有启发意义。由于社会价值观会发生变化,历史诠释也必然会不断修正。一个时代认为过去值得关注的事物,很可能与前几个时代认为值得关注的事物截然不同。自历史学这一学术职业出现以来,在相对较短的时间内,这一原则已被反复印证。对于兰克及其同时代的人来说,当时主导欧洲的主权民族国家似乎是历史进程的巅峰;国家曾是历史变革的主要推动者,人类的命运在很大程度上取决于国家间权力平衡的变迁。第一次世界大战严重动摇了这种世界观:1919年以后,在国际联盟带来的乐观情绪的背景下,英国的历史教学倾向于强调几个世纪以来国际主义的发展。

Up to a point those standards can be seen as the property of the individual historian. The experience of research is a personal and often very private one, and no two historians will share the same imaginative response to their material. As Richard Cobb put it, ‘the writing of history is one of the fullest and most rewarding expressions of an individual personality’.23 But however rarefied the atmosphere that historians breathe, they are, like everyone else, affected by the assumptions and values of their own society. It is more illuminating to see historical interpretation as moulded by social rather than individual experience. And because social values change, it follows that historical interpretation is subject to constant revision. What one age finds worthy of note in the past may well be different from what previous ages found worthy. This principle can be illustrated many times over within the relatively short span of time since the emergence of the academic profession of history. For Ranke and his contemporaries the sovereign nation-states which dominated the Europe of their day seemed the climax of the historical process; the state was the principal agent of historical change, and human destiny was largely determined by the shifting balance of power between states. This world view was seriously eroded by the First World War: after 1919, against the background of optimism engendered by the League of Nations, history teaching in Britain tended to stress rather the growth of internationalism over the centuries.

国际联盟

League of Nations

该国际组织是在第一次世界大战结束后成立的,旨在不诉诸战争解决国际争端。在成立初期,它激发了人们极大的乐观情绪,尤其是在英国。

The international organization set up at the end of the First World War to settle international disputes without recourse to war. It inspired enormous levels of optimism, especially in Britain, in its early years.

近年来,历史学家研究欧美以外世界的方式,随着他们自身经历的变迁而发生了转变。五十年前,非洲历史仍被视为欧洲扩张的一部分,其中土著居民几乎只作为白人政策和态度的对象而存在。而如今,这种视角已截然不同。情况截然不同。非洲历史自成一体,既涵盖前殖民时期的历史,也包括非洲人对殖民统治的体验和回应,并强调非洲历史发展的连续性——这种连续性此前完全被对欧洲占领的强调所掩盖。而这些连续性也已被重新评估:20世纪60年代,非洲历史学家主要关注将非洲民族主义置于前殖民时期国家形成和反抗殖民统治的历史视角下进行考察;而如今,在经历了四十年对独立成果的失望之后,他们开始关注非洲日益加深的贫困的历史根源。在短短几十年间,历史学家对非洲历史意义的评判标准就发生了两次实质性的修正。

More recently, the way in which historians study the world beyond Europe and the United States has been transformed in the light of the changes they have lived through. Fifty years ago the history of Africa was still treated as an aspect of the expansion of Europe, in which the indigenous peoples scarcely featured except as the object of white policies and attitudes. Today the perspective is very different. African history exists in its own right, embracing both the pre-colonial past and the African experience of – and response to – colonial rule, and stressing the continuities of African historical development, which had previously been completely obscured by the stress on the European occupation. And those continuities have already been reassessed: whereas in the 1960s historians of Africa were mainly concerned with placing African nationalism in a historical perspective of pre-colonial state formation and resistance to colonial rule, they are now, after forty years’ disillusionment with the fruits of independence, preoccupied with the historical antecedents of Africa’s deepening poverty. Twice in the course of a single lifetime the standards of significance applied by historians to the African past have been substantially revised.

然而,认为历史会被每一代人(或每十年)重写,只说对了一部分事实——如果暗示一种共识被另一种共识所取代,那就完全是误导了。对于中世纪盛期或文艺复兴时期的历史著作而言,谈论学术共识或许更为恰当,因为当时的历史学家及其读者都来自非常有限的社会阶层,而且在如此遥远的过去,历史学家之间的差异似乎远不如他们共同秉持的价值观重要。但20世纪西方社会识字率的提高和教育的普及意味着,如今的历史写作反映了更为广泛的价值观和假设。像奥利弗·克伦威尔或拿破仑·波拿巴这样历史上杰出的政治人物,无论是专业历史学家还是普通民众,都会以截然不同的方式解读他们,而这在一定程度上取决于他们自身的政治价值观。24彼得·拉斯莱特这样的自由主义或保守主义历史学家倾向于将前工业时代英国的社会关系视为互惠的,而像E·P·汤普森这样的激进派历史学家则认为这些关系是剥削性的。25迈克尔 ·霍华德公开承认自己存在一种普遍存在的偏见——即偏爱自由主义政治秩序,在这种秩序下,历史学家才能不受审查地进行研究。26 然而,许多其他历史学家会将物质进步或社会关系中的平等置于思想和言论自由之上。历史诠释是一个价值判断的问题,在不同程度上受到道德和政治态度的影响。二十世纪初阿克顿在剑桥的继任者J·B·伯里曾这样展望科学史的曙光:“政治哲学流派虽多,历史学派却将不复存在。” 27然而,更接近事实的说法是,只要政治哲学流派众多,历史学派也将层出不穷。矛盾的是,所有历史探究都带有某种当下性。

However, to say that history is rewritten by each generation (or decade) is only part of the truth – and positively misleading if it suggests the replacement of one consensus by another. In the case of history written during the High Middle Ages or the Renaissance it might be appropriate to speak of a scholarly consensus, since historians and their audience were drawn from a very restricted sector of society, and at this distance in time the differences between historians seem much less significant than the values they held in common. But the attainment of universal literacy and the extension of education in Western society in the twentieth century mean that historical writing now reflects a much wider range of values and assumptions. The towering political personalities of the past such as Oliver Cromwell or Napoleon Bonaparte are interpreted in widely divergent ways by professional historians as well as lay people, partly according to their own political values.24 Liberal or conservative historians such as Peter Laslett tend to conceive of social relations in pre-industrial England as reciprocal, while radically inclined historians such as E.P. Thompson see them as exploitative.25 Michael Howard has made public confession of a bias that is widely shared – a bias in favour of a liberal political order in which alone the historian has been permitted to work without censorship.26 Many other historians, however, would set a higher value on material progress or equality in social relations than on freedom of thought and expression. Historical interpretation is a matter of value judgements, moulded to a greater or lesser degree by moral and political attitudes. At the beginning of the twentieth century Acton’s successor at Cambridge, J.B. Bury, looked forward to the dawn of scientific history with these words: ‘Though there be many schools of political philosophy, there will no longer be divers schools of history’.27 It would be nearer the truth to say that for as long as there are many schools of political philosophy there will be divers schools of history. Paradoxically there is an element of present-mindedness about all historical enquiry.

彼得·拉斯莱特(1915–2001)

Peter Laslett (1915–2001)

英国历史学家。他是英国家庭史研究的先驱。他的开创性社会史著作《我们失去的世界》(1965年)颠覆了许多关于早期现代英国日常生活的常见假设。

British historian. He pioneered the study of the history of the English family. His ground-breaking work of social history The World We Have Lost (1965) overturned many common assumptions about everyday life in early modern England.

迈克尔·霍华德爵士(1922年—)

Sir Michael Howard (1922–)

英国军事历史学家,1980-1989年牛津大学钦定现代史教授。

British military historian, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford 1980–9.

探寻起源

The search for origins

当然,问题在于如何界定“当下性”与历史学家力求忠实于历史的愿望之间的冲突。这种冲突在那些为了迎合某种意识形态而搜罗历史素材,或为了支持某种政治纲领而篡改历史的作者身上体现得最为明显,例如纳粹历史学家在第三帝国时期所做的,以及如今否认大屠杀的支持者所做的。这类作品是宣传,而非历史,专业人士——有时甚至是普通人——通常都能看出其中的证据已被压制或捏造。在历史学家自身,“当下性”通常表现为两种形式。第一种是对现代世界的历史起源,或其某些特别显著的特征——例如核心家庭或议会民主制——感兴趣。这本身是对社会相关性主张的一种积极回应,其优点在于提供了一个清晰的选择原则,从而能够构建一幅易于理解的历史图景。但它也存在流于表面和歪曲的风险。探寻某些具有典型“现代”特征的历史渊源的问题在于,其结果很容易显得像是预先注定的,而非复杂历史进程的结果。将某一发展脉络抽象出来追溯其起源,往往意味着对历史背景的漠视;探究得越往前,就越容易过分强调线性传承,从而掩盖相关制度或习俗的当代意义。例如,19世纪的辉格党历史学家由于对议会起源的执着,完全误解了中世纪英国政府的结构。类似的批评也针对近期关于中世纪和近代早期家庭关系与性史的研究。正如巴特菲尔德在《辉格党的历史解释》(1931年)——或许是最具影响力的论战著作——中所言。反对以当下为中心的史学观点——“可以​​说,只着眼于当下而研究过去,是历史学中一切罪恶和诡辩的根源,其中最简单的莫过于时代错置。” 29 “辉格党”史学倾向于低估过去与现在的差异——将现代思维方式投射到过去,并忽略那些与现代观念格格不入的过往经验。如此一来,它便降低了历史的社会价值,而历史的社会价值很大程度上源于它作为过去经验与我们自身经验对比的宝库。

The problem, of course, is to determine at what point presentmindedness conflicts with the historian’s aspiration to be true to the past. The conflict is clearest in the case of those writers who ransack the past for material to fuel a particular ideology, or who falsify it in support of a political programme, as Nazi historians did under the Third Reich and supporters of Holocaust denial do today. Such works are propaganda, not history, and it is usually clear to the professional – and sometimes the lay person – that evidence has been suppressed or manufactured. Among historians themselves present-mindedness commonly takes two forms. The first is an interest in the historical origins of the modern world, or some particularly salient feature of it – say the nuclear family household or parliamentary democracy. In itself this is a positive response to the claims of social relevance, and it has the merit of providing a clear principle of selection leading to an intelligible picture of the past. But it also carries risks of superficiality and distortion. The problem with seeking the historical antecedents of some characteristically ‘modern’ feature is that the outcome can so easily seem to be predetermined, instead of being the result of complex historical processes. Abstracting one strand of development to be traced back to its origins too often means an indifference to historical context; the further back the enquiry proceeds, the more likely will a stress on linear descent obscure the contemporary significance of the institution or convention in question. Thus the Whig historians of the nineteenth century completely misunderstood the structure of medieval English government because of their obsessive interest in the origins of Parliament. A comparable criticism has been levelled at recent work on the medieval and early modern history of family relations and sexuality.28 As Butterfield put it in The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) – probably the most influential polemic ever written against present-minded history – ‘the study of the past with one eye, so to speak, upon the present is the source of all sins and sophistries in history, starting with the simplest of them, the anachronism’.29 ‘Whig’ history exhibits a tendency to underestimate the differences between past and present – to project modern ways of thought backwards in time and to discount those aspects of past experience that are alien to modern ideas. In this way it reduces history’s social value, which derives largely from its being a storehouse of past experiences contrasted to our own.

为受压迫者发声

A voice for the oppressed

如今,第二种以当下为中心的史学(或称“当代史”)更为盛行。这种史学写作出于对某个社会群体的政治认同,而这个群体此前一直被主流史学所边缘化。正如第一章所述,有效的当代政治行动需要清晰的社会记忆,而提供这种记忆一直是英国和美国黑人史学家和女性史学家的主要目标之一。据说,这些激进史学的目的不仅在于揭示此前“被历史掩盖”的内容,在于展现某种预设的历史经验——在本例中即压迫与反抗——而将那些与作者政治纲领不太契合的材料排除在外。因此,西非社会在跨大西洋奴隶贸易中的共谋,或者十九世纪许多女权主义者的性保守主义倾向,都可能被忽略。当族群特殊性或性别忠诚成为研究的决定性动力时,为了构建跨越时代的认同感,人们可能会淡化“过去”与“现在”之间的差异,而不会认真努力去理解其他群体在历史进程中的经历。如此一来,一种反应式的历史编纂便应运而生,其特点是对既有秩序​​的维护比以往更加明确和强硬。

Today a second variant of present-minded history (or ‘presentism’) is much more prevalent. This is the history written out of political commitment to a social group that has previously been marginalized by the prevalent historiography. As explained in Chapter 1, effective political action in the present requires an articulate social memory, and to supply this has been one of the main objectives of black historians and women’s historians in Britain and the United States. It is said that the purpose of these radical histories is not just to uncover what was previously ‘hidden from history’30 but to demonstrate historical experience of a predetermined kind – in this case oppression and resistance – to the exclusion of material that fits less neatly with the political programme of the writer. Thus the complicity of West African societies in the transatlantic slave trade may be omitted, or the sexual conservatism of much nineteenth-century feminism. When ethnic particularism or gender loyalty provides the decisive impetus for research, the differences between ‘then’ and ‘now’ may be downplayed in the cause of forging an identity across the ages, while no serious effort may be made to understand the experience of other groups with a part in the story. The way is then open for a reactive historiography marked by a more explicit and hard-nosed defence of the established order than that which existed before.

“人人皆可作自己的历史学家”

‘Everyman his own historian’

如果历史研究的结果如此深受研究者个人偏好的影响,又如此容易被其他研究者的干预所改变,那么它又如何能被视为对知识的严肃贡献,从而获得任何可信度呢?如果事实和价值……两者密不可分,如何区分健全的历史与不健全的历史呢?两次世界大战之间,某些圈子流行接受怀疑论者的大部分观点,甚至全部观点。这些历史学家断言,历史诠释只有在符合其写作时代的需要时才应被视为正确。美国学者卡尔·M·贝克尔以“人人皆可成为自己的历史学家”这一说法,否定了自兰克以来历史学界追求权威历史的理念。近年来,戈登·康奈尔-史密斯和豪厄尔·劳埃德也对此进行了精辟的阐述:

If the outcome of historical enquiry is so heavily conditioned by the preferences of the enquirer and can so easily be altered by the intervention of another enquirer, how can it merit any credibility as a serious contribution to knowledge? If fact and value are inextricably tied together, how can a distinction be drawn between sound and unsound history? Between the two World Wars it was the fashion in some quarters to concede most, if not all, of the sceptics’ case. Historical interpretation, these historians averred, should be considered true only in relation to the needs of the age in which it was written. With the phrase ‘Everyman his own historian’,31 the American scholar Carl M. Becker renounced the aspirations to definitive history that had characterized the profession since Ranke. More recently the case has been succinctly put by Gordon Connell-Smith and Howell Lloyd:

历史并非“过去”,也并非仅存的过去。它是对过去某些部分的重构(基于现存证据),这些部分在某种程度上与重构它们的历史学家所处的当下环境相关。32

History is not ‘the past’, nor yet the surviving past. It is a reconstruction of certain parts of the past (from surviving evidence) which in some way have had relevance for the present circumstances of the historian who reconstructed them.32

过去的不可企及

The unattainability of the past

这种立场的含义令人不安。不出所料,历史学家们不愿轻易放弃他们学科的学术尊严。过去四十年来,正统派对相对主义的回应本质上是对历史主义的重新阐述。这种论点认为,历史学家必须放弃任何他们所研究时代之外的标准或优先事项。他们的目标是用过去自身的视角来理解过去,或者用埃尔顿的话来说,“从内部理解某个特定问题”。 33历史学家应该浸润于时代的价值观之中,并尝试从事件参与者的角度看待事件。只有这样,他们才能忠于他们的研究对象和他们的职业。但是,这种声称能够代表过去发声的说法经不起推敲。表面上看,历史学家似乎在吸收他们所研究对象的价值观方面取得了显著的成功:外交史学家通常接受自文艺复兴以来指导欧洲国际关系的“国家利益”伦理而政治运动史学家也很有可能理解其成员的观点和愿望。然而,一旦历史学家将研究范围扩大到整个社会,“时代标准”就成了一个循环论证的说法。究竟应该采用谁的标准——富人的标准还是穷人的标准?被殖民者的标准还是殖民者的标准?新教徒的标准还是天主教的标准?认为放弃一切主张的历史学家就一定能够理解时代标准,这是一种谬误。因此,“相关性”确保了他们作品的客观性。然而,在实践中,他们的写作面临着两种风险。一方面,他们可能发现自己受限于史料创造者的优先事项和假设;另一方面,最终成果很可能受到他们自身价值观的影响——即便这种影响是无意识的——而这些价值观由于未公开,难以被充分考虑。埃尔顿的作品就体现了这两种倾向:他笔下的都铎王朝英格兰,是通过专制家长式官僚机构的视角来呈现的,而埃尔顿对这些机构的记录了如指掌,其观点显然与他自身的保守信念相契合。 34 重构历史是一种正当的追求,但认为它能够完全实现,或者认为它能够带来关于过去的客观知识,则是错误的。

The implications of this position are disturbing. Not surprisingly historians are reluctant to allow their discipline’s claim to academic respectability to be so lightly abandoned. Over the past forty years the orthodox response to relativism has been to make what is essentially a restatement of historicism. Historians, the argument goes, must renounce any standards or priorities external to the age they are studying. Their aim is to understand the past in its own terms, or in Elton’s words ‘to understand a given problem from the inside’.33 Historians should be steeped in the values of the age and should attempt to see events from the standpoint of those who participated in them. Only then will they be true to their material and their vocation. But this claim to speak with the voice of the past will not bear inspection. On the face of it, historians may appear to be strikingly successful in assimilating the values of those they write about: diplomatic historians usually accept the ethics of raison d’état which have governed the conduct of international relations in Europe since the Renaissance, and the historian of a political movement may well be able to achieve an empathy with the outlook and aspirations of its members. However, as soon as historians cast their net more widely to embrace an entire society, ‘the standards of the age’ becomes a question-begging phrase. Whose standards should be adopted – those of the rich or the poor, the colonized or the colonizers, Protestant or Catholic? It is a fallacy to suppose that historians who renounce all claim to ‘relevance’ thereby ensure the objectivity of their work. In practice their writing is exposed to two dangers. On the one hand they may find themselves confined by the priorities and assumptions of those who created the sources; on the other, the end-product is quite likely to be influenced – if only unconsciously – by their own values, which are difficult to make allowances for because they are undeclared. Elton’s work illustrates both these tendencies: his Tudor England is seen through the spectacles of the authoritarian paternalist bureaucracy whose records Elton knew so intimately and whose outlook was evidently congenial to his own conservative convictions.34 Re-creative history is a legitimate pursuit, but it is a mistake to suppose that it can ever be completely realized, or that it carries the promise of objective knowledge about the past.

GR Elton(1921–94)

G.R. Elton (1921–94)

杰弗里·埃尔顿爵士最初凭借其博士论文《都铎王朝的政府革命》一书而声名鹊起。他认为,托马斯·克伦威尔在亨利八世的宫廷中建立了一套极为现代化的官僚体系,实际上相当于一场行政革命。然而,埃尔顿有时也被指责将都铎王朝时期英国的一切事物都视为与官僚行政相关的问题。

Sir Geoffrey Elton first made his name with a detailed study, based on his Ph.D. thesis, of what he called The Tudor Revolution in Government. He held that Thomas Cromwell had instituted such a strikingly modern system of bureaucracy at Henry VIII’s court that it amounted in effect to an administrative revolution. However, Elton was sometimes accused of seeing everything in Tudor England as if it related to bureaucratic administration.

历史与后见之明

History and hindsight

严格意义上的历史主义方法还面临着另一个严重的难题。我们永远无法重现当时人们所经历的历史时刻的真实面貌,因为我们与他们不同,我们知道之后发生了什么;而我们赋予特定事件的意义,也必然受到这种认知的影响。这正是对科林伍德“历史学家重现过去个人的思想”这一观点最有力的反驳之一。无论我们是否愿意承认,历史学家在研究过去时,都带着一种后见之明的优越视角。有些历史学家竭力想要摆脱这种优越视角,将研究范围限定在短短几年甚至几个月的历史中,以便尽可能详尽地叙述事件经过,尽量减少选择和诠释。然而,完全摆脱后见之明在理论上是不可能的。此外,难道不应该将后见之明视为一种需要利用的优势,而不是一种需要克服的障碍吗?正是我们相对于研究对象的时间位置,使我们能够理解过去——识别出历史参与者未曾意识到的制约因素,并看到其后果的本来面目,而非其预期的后果。严格来说,“为历史而历史”意味着放弃使历史研究具有价值的大部分要素,却无法达到完全超脱的预期目标。仅仅为了过去而退回到过去,并不能回避历史客观性的问题。

There is another serious difficulty encountered by the strictly historicist approach. We can never recapture the authentic flavour of a historical moment as it was experienced by people at the time because we, unlike them, know what happened next; and the significance which we accord to a particular incident is inescapably conditioned by that knowledge. This is one of the most telling objections that can be made against Collingwood’s idea that historians re-enact the thought of individuals in the past. Like it or not, the historian approaches the past with a superior vision conferred by hindsight. Some historians do their best to renounce this superior vision by confining their research to a few years or even months of history, for which they can give a blow-by-blow account with a minimum of selection or interpretation, but the total divestment of hindsight is not intellectually possible. Besides, should not hindsight be viewed as an asset to be exploited rather than a disability to be overcome? It is precisely our position in time relative to the subject of our enquiry that enables us to make sense of the past – to identify conditioning factors of which the historical participants were unaware, and to see consequences for what they were rather than what they were intended to be. Strictly interpreted, ‘history for its own sake’ would entail surrendering most of what makes the subject worth pursuing at all, without achieving the desired goal of complete detachment. The problems of historical objectivity cannot be evaded by a retreat into the past for the past’s sake.

第四

IV

后现代主义的挑战

The challenge of Postmodernism

迄今为止,对历史研究的这种评价隐含着一种方法论的等级制度,其中实证主义科学被视为衡量知识严谨性的最终标尺。科学方法被视为获取关于过去或现在现实的直接知识的唯一途径。历史主义的程序几乎无法提供站得住脚的辩护,并且凡是达不到科学方法标准的地方,都必然被视为低劣。这场争论自历史学被认真研究以来就一直存在,而且至今仍未见定论。然而,在过去的三十年中,人文学科内部发生了一次重大的知识转变,否定了历史主义作为历史学以及所有其他以文本为基础的学科的基础,这增强了怀疑论者的影响力。这就是后现代主义。它的标志是将语言置于经验之上,导致人们对人类观察和解释外部世界(尤其是人类世界)的能力持彻底的怀疑态度。后现代主义对历史研究地位的潜在影响是严重的,必须谨慎对待。

So far this evaluation of historical enquiry has implied a hierarchy of approaches in which positivist science stands as the ultimate yardstick of intellectual rigour. Scientific method is here viewed as the only means of gaining direct knowledge of reality, past or present. The procedures of historicism offer a scarcely tenable defence, and to the extent that they fall short of scientific method must be deemed inferior. This debate has been running for as long as history has been seriously studied, and it shows no sign of being resolved. However, in the past three decades the hand of the sceptics has been strengthened by a major intellectual shift within the humanities that has rejected historicism as the basis for history and all other text-based disciplines. This is Postmodernism. Its hallmark is the prioritization of language over experience, leading to outright scepticism as to the human capacity to observe and interpret the external world, and especially the human world. The implications of Postmodernism for the standing of historical work are potentially serious and must be addressed with some care.

语言的暴政

The tyranny of language

现代语言理论源于费迪南·德·索绪尔在二十世纪初开创的传统。索绪尔指出,语言远非中立被动的表达媒介,而是由其自身的内部结构所支配。词语与其所指对象或概念之间的关系——或者用索绪尔的术语来说,即“能指”与“所指”之间的关系——归根结底是任意的。没有两种语言的词语与事物之间存在完全相同的对应关系;在一种语言中可行的某些思维或观察模式,在另一种语言中则是不可能的。由此,索绪尔得出结论:语言是非指称性的——言语和文字应该被理解为一种由其自身规律支配的语言结构,而不是现实的反映:语言不是通往世界的窗口,而是一种决定我们对世界感知的结构。这种理解语言的方式会直接降低作者的地位:如果语言结构如此具有约束性,那么文本的意义就不仅取决于语言的形式属性,也取决于其内在逻辑。作者的意图,或许还有更多。任何认为作者能够准确地将“他们”的意图传达给读者的想法都站不住脚。罗兰·巴特曾用一句广为引用的名言谈到“作者之死”。 35 同样,我们也可以说传统意义上的文本批评家之死,因为文本诠释者与文本作者一样缺乏自主性。不存在凌驾于文本之上的客观历史方法,只有诠释者利用其可用的语言资源构建的诠释视角。历史学家(或文学批评家)并非站在特权地位上发言。

Modern theories of language stand in a tradition first laid out by Ferdinand de Saussure at the beginning of the twentieth century. Saussure declared that, far from being a neutral and passive medium of expression, language is governed by its own internal structure. The relationship between a word and the object or idea it denotes – or between ‘signifier’ and ‘signified’ in Saussure’s terminology – is in the last resort arbitrary. No two languages have an identical match between words and things; certain patterns of thought or observation that are possible in one language are beyond the resources of another. From this Saussure drew the conclusion that language is non-referential – that speech and writing should be understood as a linguistic structure governed by its own laws, not as a reflection of reality: language is not a window on the world but a structure that determines our perception of the world. This way of understanding language has the immediate effect of downgrading the status of the writer: if the structure of the language is so constraining, the meaning of a text will have as much to do with the formal properties of the language as with the intentions of the writer, and perhaps more. Any notion that writers can accurately convey ‘their’ meaning to their readers falls to the ground. In a much-quoted phrase, Roland Barthes spoke of ‘the death of the author’.35 One might equally speak of the death of the textual critic in the traditional sense, since those who interpret texts have as little autonomy as those who wrote them. There can be no objective historical method standing outside the text, only an interpretative point of address fashioned from the linguistic resources available to the interpreter. The historian (or literary critic) does not speak from a privileged vantage point.

然而,如果我们想用“语言”来指代某种共同的结构和统一的惯例,那么仅仅用单数形式来谈论任何社会的“语言”就过于简单化了。任何语言都是一个复杂的意义系统——一个多重编码系统,其中词语对不同的受众往往具有不同的含义;事实上,语言的力量部分就蕴含于它所传递的那些无意间产生的多层次意义之中。在后现代主义圈子里,那种将直接或“表面”意义置于次要意义之外,而着重于那些不那么显而易见的文本分析方法,被称为“解构”——这个术语是由雅克·德里达创造的。解构涵盖了大量令人眼花缭乱的、大胆而又不和谐的解读。如果将索绪尔的能指与所指的分离视为一个绝对原则,那么最终允许的解读范围将没有限制。这种创造性的文本解读方法——时而诙谐,时而讽刺,时而颠覆——是后现代学术研究的标志。36

However, it is simplistic to speak of the ‘language’ of any society in the singular, if by this we mean to suggest a common structure and uniform conventions. Any language is a complex system of meanings – a multiple code in which words often signify different meanings to different audiences; indeed the power of language partly resides in the unintended layers of meaning it conveys. The kind of textual analysis in which the immediate or ‘surface’ meaning is set aside in favour of the less obvious is called in Postmodern circles ‘deconstruction’ – a term coined by Jacques Derrida. Deconstruction covers a bewildering mass of daring and dissonant readings. If Saussure’s severance of signifier from signified is treated as an absolute principle, there is after all no limit to the range of permitted readings. The creative approach to interpreting texts – playful, ironic and subversive by turns – is a hallmark of Postmodern scholarship.36

解构主义者

deconstructionists

也被称为建构主义者,是历史上的后现代主义者的文学先驱。他们受到法国文学学者雅克·德里达的启发,强调分析文本的重要性不仅在于文本的措辞,还在于其词汇中隐藏的假设和社会或道德价值观,甚至质疑文本是否真的表达了其词语的理论含义。

Also known as constructionists, the literary forebears of historical Postmodernists. Inspired by the French literary scholar Jacques Derrida, they stressed the importance of analysing not just the wording of a text but the hidden assumptions and social or moral values within its vocabulary, even questioning whether text actually denotes what its words theoretically mean.

互文性:文本与语境

Intertextuality: text and context

然而,对于大多数语言学转向的倡导者而言,“互文性”的约束限制了我们“解读”文本的自由。根据这种观点,过去的文本不应被孤立地看待,因为任何文本都不是孤立创作的。所有作者使用的语言都已服务于与他们自身类似的目的,而他们的读者可能会参照其他语言使用惯例来解读他们的作品。在任何特定时期,文本世界都由多种多样的文本生产形式构成,每种形式都有其自身的文化逻辑、概念范畴和使用模式。简而言之,每个文本都属于某种“话语”或语言实践体系。如今,“话语”一词最广为人知的含义是法国哲学家赋予它的独特诠释。米歇尔·福柯认为,“话语”不仅指语言使用模式,更是一种“权力/知识”形式,它揭示了人们如何被限制在特定话语的规制范围内。他指出,在1750年至1850年间,关于疯狂、惩罚和性的新话语如何在西欧确立,挑战了将这一时期视为社会和思想进步时期的传统解读。 37在后现代主义的奠基人中,福柯对时代有着强烈的感知,这一点较为特殊。但大多数文学学者使用“话语”和“互文性”这两个概念时,往往会脱离“现实”世界的任何根基,从而印证了德里达那句著名的格言:“文本之外无物”。 38

For most exponents of the linguistic turn, however, some limit is placed on the freedom with which we can ‘read’ texts by the constraints of ‘intertextuality’. According to this perspective, the texts of the past should not be viewed in isolation, because no text has ever been composed in isolation. All writers employ a language that has already served purposes similar to their own, and their audience may interpret what they write with reference to yet other conventions of language use. At any given time the world of texts is composed of diverse forms of production, each with its own cultural rationale, conceptual categories and patterns of usage. Each text belongs, in short, to a ‘discourse’ or body of language practice. Today the term ‘discourse’ is best known in the distinctive twist given to it by French philosopher Michel Foucault. For him ‘discourse’ meant not just a pattern of language use but a form of ‘power/knowledge’, pointing to the way in which people are confined within the regulatory scope of specific discourses. He showed how new, more restrictive discourses of madness, punishment and sexuality became established in Western Europe between 1750 and 1850, challenging the conventional interpretation of this period as one of social and intellectual progress.37 Foucault was unusual among the founding fathers of Postmodernism in conveying a strong sense of period. But as used by most literary scholars, ‘discourse’ and ‘intertextuality’ have a tendency to float free of any anchorage in the ‘real’ world, thus bearing out Derrida’s celebrated aphorism, ‘there is nothing outside the text’.38

米歇尔·福柯(1926–84)

Michel Foucault (1926–84)

法国哲学家和社会历史学家。福柯对十九世纪医院、监狱和精神病院等限制性或压迫性机构的研究,使人们对个人与国家之间的权力关系有了新的认识。

French philosopher and social historian. Foucault’s studies of restrictive or oppressive institutions, such as nineteenth-century hospitals, prisons and mental asylums, have led to a new understanding of the power relationship between the individual and the state.

相对主义:没有什么是确定的。

Relativism: nothing is certain

如同所有与现代语言学相关的批判性方法一样,话语分析也建立在相对主义之上。其拥护者驳斥了语言反映现实的观点,认为这是一种表象谬误。他们断言,语言本质上是不稳定的,其意义会随时间而变化,并且在其所处的时代本身就充满争议。如果接受这种不确定性,那么它将对传统的历史探究观念构成致命的打击。试图区分过去的事件和表征这些事件的话语将变得毫无意义;正如拉斐尔·塞缪尔在对罗兰·巴特的精辟总结中所言,历史变成了“一场伪装成事实集合的能指游行”。 39正如我们在第五章中所看到的,历史学家当然不会将他们的原始资料视为绝对可靠,他们习惯于反其道而行之,从中挖掘隐含的意义。但他们学术实践的根本在于一种信念:这些资料至少能够揭示出它们最初对那些撰写和阅读它们的人而言所具有的部分意义。这对于解构主义者来说是极其不可接受的,因为在他们看来,任何技术专长都无法消除文本阅读中固有的主观性和不确定性。解构主义者反而赋予我们自由探索任何意义的乐趣,前提是我们不声称对任何意义拥有权威。任何学术成就都无法赋予我们特权视角。我们所拥有的只是读者与文本之间自由的互动,其中没有任何既定的程序,也没有任何上诉的途径。妄图拥有更多,要么是天真,要么——更确切地说——是愚蠢。过激的后现代主义言论——对无辜读者的欺骗。

Analysing discourse, like all the critical procedures associated with modern linguistics, is founded on relativism. Its champions dismiss the idea that language reflects reality as the representational fallacy. Language, they assert, is inherently unstable, variable in its meanings over time, and contested in its own time. If accepted at face value, that indeterminacy is fatal to traditional notions of historical enquiry. It becomes meaningless to attempt a distinction between the events of the past and the discourse in which they are represented; as Raphael Samuel put it in a neat summary of Roland Barthes, history becomes ‘a parade of signifiers masquerading as a collection of facts’.39 As we saw in Chapter 5, historians certainly do not regard their primary sources as infallible, and they are accustomed to reading them against the grain for implicit meanings. But underlying their scholarly practice is the belief that the sources can yield up some, at least, of the meaning they held for those who wrote and read them originally. That is anathema to the deconstructionist, for whom no amount of technical expertise can remove the subjectivity and indeterminacy inherent in the reading of texts. Deconstructionists offer us instead the pleasure of finding any meanings we like, provided we do not claim authority for any of them. No amount of scholarship can give us a privileged vantage point. All that is available to us is a free interaction between reader and text, in which there are no approved procedures and no court of appeal. To claim any more is naïvety or – in the more intemperate Postmodernist statements – a deception practised on the innocent reader.

诅咒

anathema

完全不可接受。这个词源于罗马天主教会,用来指代与天主教教义完全不相容的思想和信仰。

Completely unacceptable. The term comes from the Roman Catholic Church, where it is used to denote ideas and beliefs that are entirely incompatible with Catholic doctrine.

对历史的否定

The negation of history

由于历史学家所宣称的远不止于此,他们的实践的方方面面都可能受到后现代主义的挑战。一旦历史文本诠释方法的有效性受到质疑,所有建立在其基础上的程序都将受到批判。兰克式的重构过去的计划也随之瓦解,因为它依赖于对原始资料的一种特权式的、“真实”的解读。后现代主义历史学无法提供历史解释,只能提供互文性,而互文性关注的是文本之间的论述关系,而非事件之间的因果关系;历史解释被斥为一种虚幻的安慰,用来安抚那些无法面对一个没有意义的世界的人。40传统的历史参与者也好不到哪里去。如果作者已死,那么统一的历史主体也随之消亡,无论其被视为个体还是群体(例如阶级或民族):根据后现代主义的观点,身份是由语言建构的——由于它是各种相互竞争的话语的焦点,因此它是支离破碎且不稳定的。或许最重要的是,解构历史上那些传统的行动主体——个人和群体——意味着历史不再有宏大的叙事可讲。民族、工人阶级,甚至进步的理念,都消融于话语建构之中。连续性和演进被摒弃,取而代之的是断裂性,例如福柯提出的自十六世纪以来四个互不相连的历史时期(或称“认知时代”)。 41 后现代主义者通常对历史学家的“宏大叙事”或“元叙事”——例如资本主义的兴起或自由思想和宽容的发展——持批判态度。他们最多承认的是,过去可以被构建成多种多样的故事,正如单个文本可以有多种解读一样。

Because historians claim vastly more than this, every aspect of their practice is open to challenge by Postmodernism. Once the validity of the historical method of interpreting texts is undermined, all the procedures erected on that foundation are called into question. The Rankean project of re-creating the past collapses, because it depends on a privileged, ‘authentic’ reading of the primary sources. In place of historical explanation, Postmodernist history can only offer intertextuality, which deals in discursive relations between texts, not causal relations between events; historical explanation is dismissed as no more than a chimera to comfort those who cannot face a world without meaning.40 The conventional actors of history fare no better. If the author is dead, so too is the unified historical subject, whether conceived of as an individual or as a collectivity (such as class or nation): according to the Postmodernist view, identity is constructed by language – fractured and unstable because it is the focus of competing discourses. Perhaps most important of all, deconstructing the individuals and groups who have been the traditional actors in history means that history no longer has a big story to tell. The nation, the working class, even the idea of progress, all dissolve into discursive constructions. Continuity and evolution are rejected in favour of discontinuity, as for example in Foucault’s conception of four unconnected historical epochs (or ‘epistemes’) since the sixteenth century.41 Postmodernists are generally scathing about the ‘grand narratives’ or ‘metanarratives’ of historians – such as the rise of capitalism or the growth of free thought and toleration. The most they will concede is that the past can be arranged into a multiplicity of stories, just as individual texts are open to a plurality of readings.

如此激进的重新评估对我们如何理解历史学家的活动具有重大意义。后现代主义者对此提出了两个重要的视角。首先,他们强调历史写作是一种文学创作形式,与其他任何文体一样,它也遵循一定的修辞惯例。海登·怀特在其极具影响力的著作《元历史》(1973)中,从美学的角度分析了这些惯例,并对其进行了分类。根据十二种文体变化和四种潜在的“修辞格”,历史写作呈现出不同的面貌。这种精细分析的具体细节远不如怀特的理论结论重要,即任何历史作品的特征与其说是由作者的学识或意识形态决定的,不如说是由他或她在研究之初(通常是无意识地)做出的审美选择决定的,而这些选择又影响着文本的论述策略。这种将审美置于意识形态之上的立场,在某种程度上是一种纯粹主义。后现代主义目前更倾向于另一种视角,在这种视角下,历史学家被视为一系列植根于当下的政治立场的载体。由于过去的文献遗存可以有多种解读,而且历史学家使用的语言也带有意识形态的色彩,因此历史写作永远不可能完全客观。历史本身没有固定的形态,历史学家也无法从外部对其进行重构和界定。他们讲述的故事,以及他们笔下的人物,仅仅是主观偏好,源自于无数种可能的策略。历史学家身处他们试图呈现的纷繁复杂的现实之中,因此总是带有其意识形态的印记。他们或许只是复制主流或“霸权”意识形态;或者,他们可能认同某种激进或颠覆性的意识形态;但所有这些都同样根植于当今的政治语境之中。

A reappraisal as radical as this has major implications for how we understand the activity of being a historian. Postmodernists have brought two important perspectives to bear on this. First, they emphasize that historical writing is a form of literary production which, like any other genre, operates within certain rhetorical conventions. In his very influential Metahistory (1973), Hayden White analyses these conventions in aesthetic terms and classifies historical writing according to twelve stylistic permutations and four underlying ‘tropes’. The specifics of this elaborate analysis are less important than White’s theoretical conclusion, that the character of any work of history is determined not so much by the author’s scholarship or ideology as by the aesthetic choices that he or she makes (usually unconsciously) at the outset of the enquiry and that inform the discursive strategies of the text. With its privileging of the aesthetic over the ideological, this is a somewhat purist position. Postmodernism is currently more strongly identified with a second perspective, in which the historian is seen as the vector of a range of political positions rooted in the here and now. Because the documentary residue of the past is open to so many readings, and because historians employ language that is ideologically tainted, history writing is never innocent. There being no shape to history, historians cannot reconstruct and delineate it from outside. The stories they tell, and the human subjects they write about, are merely subjective preference, drawn from an infinity of possible strategies. Historians are embedded in the messy reality they seek to represent, and hence always bear its ideological imprint. They may do no more than replicate the dominant or ‘hegemonic’ ideology; alternatively, they may identify with one of a number of radical or subversive ideologies; but all are equally rooted in the politics of today.

套路

trope

比喻或修辞手法。

A metaphor or figure of speech.

审美的

aesthetic

艺术的,或与艺术或美有关的。

Artistic or relating to art or beauty.

霸权

hegemonic

占主导地位的,对某个地区或领域行使权力的。

Dominant, exercising power over a region or domain.

从这个角度来看,所有历史版本都是“当下主义的”,而不仅仅是那些带有政治色彩的版本。用基思·詹金斯的话来说,历史变成了一种“话语实践,它使具有当下意识的人们能够回到过去,在那里深入挖掘并根据自身需求对其进行适当的重组”。 42由于这些需求多种多样,甚至相互排斥,因此不可能存在历史学家共同体,也不可能在不同观点持有者之间进行对话。四十年前,E·H·卡尔承认任何历史著作都贯穿着当下与过去的对话,这代表了历史学界怀疑论的局限性。后现代主义者接受——甚至推崇——多种并存的解释,认为所有解释都同样有效(或无效),从而向相对主义迈出了重要一步。海登·怀特写道:“我们必须面对这样一个事实:就历史记录而言,记录本身没有任何理由让我们偏爱某种解释方式而非另一种。”据说,历史学家们并非在揭示过去,而是在创造过去。而事实与虚构之间由来已久的界限也变得模糊不清。

From this angle all versions of history are ‘presentist’, not just the politically committed ones. In Keith Jenkins’s phrase, history becomes ‘a discursive practice that enables present-minded people(s) to go to the past, there to delve around and reorganise it appropriately to their needs’.42 Since those needs are diverse, and even mutually exclusive, there can be no community of historians and no dialogue between those who hold to different perspectives. Forty years ago, E.H. Carr represented the limits of scepticism in the historical profession when he acknowledged the dialogue between present and past that animates any work of history. Postmodernists take a big step closer to relativism by accepting – even celebrating – a plurality of concurrent interpretations, all equally valid (or invalid). ‘One must face the fact’, writes Hayden White, ‘that, when it comes to the historical record, there are no grounds to be found in the record itself for preferring one way of construing its meaning rather than another’.43 Historians, it is said, do not uncover the past; they invent it. And the time-honoured distinction between fact and fiction is blurred.

V

V

后现代主义的语境

Postmodernism in context

历史学家应该如何应对这场冲击?他们最擅长的任务之一,就是将后现代主义置于历史语境中。这意味着要认识到,后现代主义根植于特定的文化语境之中。顾名思义,后现代主义是一种反动现象。“现代主义”指的是从19世纪中期到20世纪中期支撑现代工业社会发展的核心信念,尤其是对进步的信仰以及对严谨理性探究效力的信念。后现代主义者抛弃这些信念,表明他们渴望新生,并希望摆脱上一代的束缚。但后现代主义的吸引力,最好地解释为它与当代思想中某些关键倾向的共鸣。一段时间以来,一种观点逐渐流行起来,认为西方传统所代表的许多东西已经走到了尽头:其全球霸权正在衰落,其科技优势已成为一种负担(例如军备竞赛),其引以为傲的理性垄断被认为与越来越多的人类问题无关,从理解心理到环境保护,无一例外。大屠杀不再被视为一种反常现象,而是被视为对传统进步等同于西方文明的残酷讽刺。人们对以往不容置疑的科学方法的优越性普遍感到失望。后现代主义的理论立场最能体现这些趋势。它质疑客观探究的可能性,从而削弱了科学的权威。它否定历史的形态和意义,使我们与过去那些最难以面对的事物——以及我们曾经引以为傲的事物——渐行渐远。如果后现代主义断言历史真的毫无意义,那么我们就必须完全承担起在自身生活中寻找意义的责任,尽管这项任务可能既艰巨又充满挑战。传统意义上的历史不仅变得不切实际,而且毫无意义。

How should historians respond to this onslaught? One task for which they are well equipped is to place Postmodernism itself in historical context. This means recognizing that it is located in a particular cultural moment. As the name implies, Postmodernism is a reactive phenomenon. ‘Modernism’ denotes the core beliefs that underpinned the evolution of modern industrial societies from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, especially the belief in progress and faith in the efficacy of disciplined, rational enquiry. In throwing them over, Postmodernists signal their desire for the new and for their emancipation from the previous generation. But the appeal of Postmodernism is best explained by its resonance with some of the defining tendencies in contemporary thought. For some time now the view has gained currency that much that the West has traditionally stood for has come to a dead end: its global supremacy is in decline, its technological flair has become a liability (as in the arms race), and its much-vaunted monopoly of reason is held to be irrelevant to an increasing range of human problems, from the understanding of the psyche to the care of the environment. The Holocaust, instead of being treated as an aberration, is now taken to be a grimly ironical commentary on the conventional equation of progress with Western civilization. There is widespread disillusion with the previously uncontested virtues of scientific method. Postmodernism is the theoretical stance that best illustrates these tendencies. By calling into question the possibility of objective enquiry, it undermines the authority of science. By denying shape and purpose to history, it distances us from all that we find hardest to face in our past – as well as that in which we used to take pride. If, as Postmodernism asserts, history really has no meaning, it follows that we must become fully responsible for finding meaning in our own lives, bleak and demanding though the task may be. History as traditionally conceived becomes not only impractical but irrelevant.

后现代主义的先驱

The precursors of Postmodernism

这并非历史学作为一门严肃学科的地位首次受到质疑。后现代主义者强调语言的不确定性,以及文化悲观主义的盛行固然具有很强的当代性,但其对历史真相的否定却让人倍感熟悉。在十六、十七世纪欧洲宗教战争时期,历史学家被哲学家斥为轻信的骗子,他们引以为傲的史料也被否定为不可靠。十九世纪的历史学家,尽管学术标准更为严谨,却很快遭到相对主义者的攻击,后者认为绝对的历史真相不过是虚幻的幻想。事实上,只要有历史记载,怀疑论者就一直存在。对“真实”的地位以及我们能否把握过去或现在的真实,自古希腊以来就一直是西方哲学传统的一部分。历史学家自身也参与了这些辩论。后现代主义远没有其拥护者有时声称的那样新颖。

This is not the first time that the credentials of history as a serious discipline have been called into question. The emphasis placed by Postmodernists on the indeterminacy of language and the pervading tone of cultural pessimism are very contemporary, but their denial of historical truth has a very familiar ring about it. In the era of religious wars in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, historians were dismissed by philosophers as credulous impostors, and their much-vaunted sources written off as unreliable. The nineteenth-century historicists, despite their more rigorous standards of scholarship, were soon being attacked by relativists who argued that absolute historical truth was a chimera. In fact there have been sceptics for as long as history has been written. Doubts about the status of the ‘real’, and our ability to apprehend it in the past or the present, have been part of the Western philosophical tradition since the ancient Greeks. Historians themselves have participated in these debates. Postmodernism is less of a novelty than its proponents sometimes claim.

历史会适应

History adapts

历史与后现代主义之间的关系也并非如我迄今为止的论述所暗示的那样对立。或许正如一些后现代主义者所言,兰克式的文献理想已经终结,我们所知的历史注定要被淘汰。 44但这种悲观的预测忽略了历史学家们已经开始吸收后现代主义视角的一些方面。正如过去屡见不鲜的那样,对历史学科的彻底批判往往是在攻击稻草人。历史学家们一直展现出与批评者对话的能力,他们愿意接受批评者提出的某些论点。他们远没有一些批评者所认为的那样执着于统一的历史主体;如今,学术作家很少会围绕“民族”或“工人阶级”来构建一本书,而不仔细分析这些标签不断变化且充满争议的意义。45同样,许多西方历史的“宏大叙事”——例如辉格党对英国历史或工业革命的解读——受到的经验主义历史学家的批判远比后现代主义者的批判更为猛烈。46

Nor is the relationship between history and Postmodernism quite so antagonistic as my account so far implies. It may be, as some Postmodernists argue, that the Rankean documentary ideal is finished and that history as we know it is destined for the scrap-heap.44 But what this gloomy prognosis overlooks is that historians are already in the process of assimilating aspects of the Postmodernist perspective. As has so often been the case in the past, root-and-branch critiques of the discipline have a tendency to attack a straw man. Historians have always shown a capacity to engage with critics of the truth claims of their discipline and to take on board some of their arguments. They are not nearly so committed to the unified historical subject as some critics have supposed; it is now rare for scholarly writers to structure a book around ‘the nation’ or ‘the working class’ without carefully analysing the changing and contested significance of these labels.45 Equally, many of the ‘grand narratives’ of Western history – such as the Whig interpretation of English history or the Industrial Revolution – have been subjected to much more devastating attack by empirically minded historians than they have by Postmodernists.46

稻草人

straw man

一个古老的词语,用来形容看起来坚强但实际上并不坚强的想法或团体。

An old term for an idea or body that is not as strong as it looks.

历史写作也直接受到人文学科语言学转向的影响。认识到语言可能对其使用者施加的结构性限制,已被证明是至关重要的。这是一个特别有益的见解。加雷斯·斯特德曼·琼斯在其著作《阶级语言》(1983)中对宪章运动的重新评估就证明了这一点。1832年《改革法案》满足了中产阶级的诉求,之后宪章运动未能持续开展争取民众民主权利的大规模运动,历史学家对此给出了各种解释。斯特德曼·琼斯认为,这场运动的根本失败在于其政治话语体系继承自过去,而这种体系并不适用于快速变化的政治格局。这有力地(尽管并非毫无争议地)论证了“对宪章运动进行分析时,应赋予其所处的语言一定的独立性”的必要性。 47历史学家也认同文本蕴含多重意义的观点,认为文本的力量可能源于其隐含的或无意识的意义。例如,在19世纪末的英国,新帝国主义的流行语言显然与民族主义和种族主义有关;但由于其强调“男子气概”和“品格”,它也带有浓重的男性不安全感,这种不安全感源于女性在家庭和职场中地位的改变。当政治家使用这种语言时,他们既反映了男性气概的不确定性,又加剧了这种不确定性,而这几乎肯定并非出于本意。48确定特定文本所属的话语体系及其与其他相关话语体系的关系,这项任务超越了传统意义上的文献批判程序。因此,历史学家现在往往更加关注文献中意义的逆向流动,从而将马克·布洛赫关于“无意识的见证者”的著名格言推向了一个崭新而富有启发性的方向。

Historical writing has also been directly influenced by the linguistic turn in the humanities. Recognizing the structural constraints that language may impose on its users has proved a particularly helpful insight. Gareth Stedman Jones proved as much in his reassessment of Chartism in Languages of Class (1983). The failure of the Chartists to sustain a mass campaign for popular democratic rights after the middle-class agenda had been met in the Reform Act of 1832 has been explained in various ways by historians. Stedman Jones concludes that the movement essentially failed because its politics was constituted by a discourse inherited from the past, which was inappropriate to a rapidly changing political landscape. It is a powerful (though not undisputed) case for ‘an analysis of Chartism which assigns some autonomous weight to the language within which it was conceived’.47 Historians are also sympathetic to the notion that texts embody more than one level of meaning, and that the implicit or unconscious meaning may be what gives the text its power. In late nineteenth-century Britain, for example, the popular language of the New Imperialism was obviously about nationalism and racism; but with its stress on ‘manliness’ and ‘character’ it also carried a heavy charge of masculine insecurity, which arose from changes in women’s position in the family and the workplace. When politicians used that language, they both reflected and intensified an uncertain sense of manhood, almost certainly without meaning to.48 Determining the discourse to which a particular text belongs, and its relation to other relevant discourses, is a task that goes beyond the procedures of source criticism as traditionally understood. As a result, historians now tend to be more sensitive to the counter-currents of meaning in their sources, pushing Marc Bloch’s well-known aphorism about ‘witnesses in spite of themselves’ in a new and rewarding direction.

改革法案

Reform Act

这项开创性的议会改革措施最终于 1832 年通过成为法律。历史学家指出,其条款相对温和,但其象征意义却十分重大。

The pioneering measure of parliamentary reform, which was finally passed into law in 1832. Historians point out that its provisions were relatively modest but that its symbolic importance was immense.

语言和文化霸权

Language and cultural hegemony

同样,后现代主义对历史写作的批判也得到了历史学家的一些积极回应。特别是,海登·怀特对历史叙事中蕴含的文学惯例的剖析,使人们重新认识到历史写作作为一种文学形式的重要性,并促使人们更愿意进行实验。 49更令人鼓舞的是,后现代主义对话语作为一种文化权力形式的解构,使得人们更难忽视历史写作本身可能成为文化霸权表达这一事实,而这反过来又为那些此前被排除在外的群体提供了进行激进抗争的机会。爱德华·萨义德对语言的形成方式和主体的建构方式的兴趣,与他对西方话语中阿拉伯人和巴勒斯坦人的研究密不可分;他开创性的著作《东方主义》(1976)被证明是后殖民或多元文化史兴起的一个转折点(见第十章)。女权主义者为了突破“人为语言”的局限,也承认她们同样受益于语言学转向。 50这些例子在一定程度上支持了后现代主义者的论点,即他们的视角蕴含着民主赋权的希望。再加上近年来语言主导理论对文化史发展产生的普遍影响(如第九章所述),显然,后现代主义与更传统的史学理论之间的碰撞是卓有成效的。

Equally, the Postmodern critique of historical writing has met with some positive responses among historians. In particular, Hayden White’s dissection of the literary conventions embedded in historical narrative has resulted in a renewed awareness of historical writing as a literary form and a greater readiness to experiment.49 Even more promising, the Postmodern deconstruction of discourse as a form of cultural power has made it harder to ignore the fact that history writing itself can be an expression of cultural hegemony, and this in turn has opened up opportunities for radical contestation by groups previously excluded from the record. Edward Said’s interest in how language is formed and how a subject is constituted has gone hand in hand with his investigation of the Arab and the Palestinian in Western discourse; his path-breaking Orientalism (1976) proved to be a turning point in the emergence of a post-colonial or multicultural history (see Chapter 10). Feminists, in their ambition to penetrate the limitations of ‘man-made language’, have acknowledged a comparable debt to the linguistic turn.50 These instances go some way to support the Postmodernists’ contention that their perspective holds out the prospect of democratic empowerment. When to that is added the pervasive influence of language-led theory on the development of cultural history in recent years (as discussed in Chapter 9), it is clear that the encounter between Postmodernism and more traditional theories of history has been quite fruitful.

六年级

VI

后现代主义的局限性

The limitations of Postmodernism

然而,大多数历史学家在拥抱后现代主义时都会有所保留。许多人欢迎更精细的文本解读方法和对历史写作文化意义的更高认识。但很少有人愿意放弃通常历史实践中对真理的断言。面对解构主义批判的全面冲击,历史学家往往更加坚定地认为经验和观察比第一性原理更为重要。理论上,我们可以无可辩驳地论证所有人类语言都是自指的而非表象性的。但日常生活告诉我们,在许多情况下,语言能够清晰地传达意义并被正确推断,因此语言发挥了极其重要的作用。任何其他假设都会彻底破坏人际互动。如果语言在当今社会确实能够发挥这些实际功能,那么就没有理由不以类似的视角来理解保存在过去文献中的语言。当然,所有语言都存在不确定性;时间的流逝加剧了这种复杂性,一篇跨越两三种论述的300年前的文本可能很难被准确解读。历史学家经常承认,他们无法完全理解文献中所包含的所有含义层次。但是,如果坚持认为过去的任何文本都不能被解读为……对外部事物的准确反映往往与常识相悖。在贸易数据或人口普查结果中,文本与现实之间的联系显而易见(但这并不意味着它必然准确)。精心构思的文学作品,例如自传或伪装成布道的政治论著,则提出了更为复杂的问题,但我们仍然需要认识到,这些作者试图与读者进行真正的交流,并尽可能地接近这种交流的精神。

However, there is a limit beyond which most historians will not go in embracing Postmodernism. Many welcome a greater sophistication in interpreting texts and a heightened awareness of the cultural significance of historical writing. But few are prepared to join in a rejection of the truth claims of history as usually practised. Confronted by the full force of the deconstructionist critique, historians tend to be confirmed in their preference for experience and observation over first principles. In theory an impeccable case can be made for the proposition that all human language is self-referential rather than representational. But daily life tells us that language works extremely well in many situations where meaning is clearly communicated and correctly inferred. On any other assumption human interaction would break down completely. If language demonstrably serves these practical functions in the present, there is no reason why it should not be understood in a similar spirit when preserved in documents dating from the past. Of course there is an element of indeterminacy about all language; the lapse of time serves to increase it, and a 300-year-old text straddling two or three discourses may be very difficult to pin down. Historians frequently acknowledge that they cannot fathom all the levels of meaning contained in their documents. But to maintain that no text from the past can be read as an accurate reflection of something outside itself flies in the face of common experience. In a set of trade figures or a census return the relation between text and reality is palpable (which is not to say that it is necessarily accurate). A carefully considered literary production such as an autobiography or a political tract disguised as a sermon presents much more complex problems, but it is still important to recognize that their authors were attempting a real engagement with their readers, and to get as close as we can to the spirit of that engagement.

政治纲领

political tract

传单是一种小册子,比宣传册大,比书籍小,用来阐述论点。传单在十九世纪被教会和宗教改革团体广泛使用,但当时也有很多政治传单。

A tract is a small booklet, larger than a pamphlet but smaller than a book, which puts across an argued case. Tracts were widely used in the nineteenth century by church and religious reform groups, but there were plenty of political tracts as well.

正是在这一点上,历史学家援引了历史语境这门学科。词语与事物之间的联系并非任意且无限的,而是遵循着真实文化和社会关系所形成的惯例。学术研究的任务在于识别这些惯例的历史特殊性,并在解读史料时充分考虑它们。语言学方法的拥护者将“语境”仅仅理解为其他文本,并且认为这些文本本身也存在多种解读的可能性,这使得语境问题更加复杂。而历史学家则坚持认为,文本应当置于其所处时代的完整语境之中。这意味着,我们不仅要认真对待语言资源,还要认真对待作者的身份和背景、文本的创作条件、目标读者、当时的文化态度以及作家和读者所处的社会关系。每一篇文本都处于特定的历史语境之中;正如加布里埃尔·施皮格尔所言,文本存在一种“社会逻辑”,而这种逻辑可以通过历史探究来揭示。51例如,我对十九世纪晚期帝国主义语言的解读是值得认真对待的,因为当时性别关系的紧张关系有非常详实的文献记载,而且帝国与男性气质的文化认同与帝国现实存在某种关联。毫无疑问,解构主义可以得出其他更精妙、更引人入胜的解释;但除非这些解释牢牢扎根于历史语境,否则它们就等同于批评家对文本的强加。尊重史料的历史性是历史研究的根本;一旦违背这一原则,历史学家便与解构主义者分道扬镳。历史学家并不声称他们的方法在所有情况下都能揭示文本意义的每一个维度;历史研究要做到真正有意义,只需证明部分原始意义可以被重新挖掘,从而使我们能够超越话语,探寻文本所处的物质和社会世界。这些文本是人为创作的。对历史事件的核实和对历史背景的严谨考证,意味着历史学家能够区分历史事件本身和描述历史事件的论述方式。

It is at this point that historians invoke the discipline of historical context. The meanings that link words and things are not arbitrary and infinite but follow conventions created by real culture and real social relations. The task of scholarship is to identify these conventions in their historical specificity and to take full account of them in interpreting the sources. Whereas exponents of the linguistic approach treat ‘context’ as meaning other texts only, with the further complication that they too invite a variety of readings, historians insist that texts should be set in the full context of their time. That means taking seriously not just the resources of the language but the identity and background of the author, the conditions of production of texts, the intended readership, the cultural attitudes of the time, and the social relations that enveloped writer and readers. Every text is socially situated in specific historical conditions; in the useful phrase of Gabrielle Spiegel, there is a ‘social logic of the text’ which is open to demonstration by historical enquiry.51 So, for example, my reading of the language of late nineteenth-century imperialism can be taken seriously because the strains in gender relations at that time are very well documented, and because the cultural identification of empire with masculinity bore some relation to imperial realities. No doubt deconstruction could yield other interpretations, more elegant and intriguing than this; but unless they have a firm anchorage in historical context, they amount to an imposition by the critic on the text. Respect for the historicity of the sources is fundamental to the historical project; the point at which it is breached is where historians part company with the deconstructionists. Historians do not claim that in all cases their method can uncover every dimension of textual meaning; in order for historical work to be done, it is sufficient to demonstrate that some of the original meaning can be reclaimed, so that we can look beyond discourse to the material and social world in which the texts were created. The verification of historical events and the discipline of historical context mean that historians can distinguish between what happened in history and the discourse in which it is represented.

对历史解释的必要性

The need for historical explanation

历史学家不再愿意抛弃他们自己构建的叙述所宣称的真理。承认历史写作的修辞性是一回事,但将其仅仅——或很大程度上——视为修辞则是另一回事。历史叙事固然受到历史学家审美意识的影响,但它们并非凭空捏造:有些叙事,例如重大的革命性变革,部分源于亲历者的意识;另一些叙事则得益于历史的后见之明。我们讲述的关于过去的故事或许并不完全连贯或完全令人信服,但它们根植于这样一个事实:人类不仅相信这些故事,而且基于社会行动是一个贯穿过去、现在和未来的连续体的假设而付诸实践。同样,历史解释的任务也不容回避。它并非如后现代主义某些悲观版本所坚持的那样,是对现实世界的逃避,而是基于超越互文性范畴的因果模式,对理性进行必要的运用。至于不同叙事方式所蕴含的解放潜力,如果每个身份群体的目标仅限于构建仅对自身成员而言“真实”的历史,那么这种潜力就微乎其微。真正的赋权来自于书写超越自身社群、具有普遍意义的历史,这意味着要遵循所有社群的历史学家都认可的学术规范。这才是大多数“多元文化”历史学家所追求的目标,而非寻求一种宽容的相对主义这种安慰奖。尽管一些保守派评论员持悲观态度,但多元主义并不一定意味着相对主义

Historians are no more willing to jettison the truth claims of the accounts that they themselves construct. It is one thing to acknowledge the rhetorical aspects of historical writing but quite another to treat it as only – or largely – rhetoric. Historical narratives are certainly moulded by the historian’s aesthetic sense, but they are not inventions: some, like the major revolutionary upheavals, arise partly from the consciousness of those who lived through them; others fall into shape through the benefit of historical hindsight. The stories we tell ourselves about the past may not be completely coherent or completely convincing, but they are rooted in the fact that human beings not only believe them but enact them on the assumption that social action is a continuum through past, present and future. The task of historical explanation is similarly one that cannot be shirked. It represents not an escape from the real world, as the bleaker versions of Postmodernism insist, but an essential application of reason, based on patterns of cause and consequence which go beyond the confined domain of intertextuality. As for the emancipatory potential of competing narratives, this amounts to little if the ambitions of each identity group are confined to producing a history that is ‘true’ only for its own members. Real empowerment comes from writing history that carries conviction beyond one’s own community, and this means conforming to the scholarly procedures that historians of all communities respect. That, rather than the consolation prize of a permissive relativism, has been the objective of most ‘multicultural’ historians. Despite the pessimism of some conservative commentators,52 pluralism does not necessarily mean relativism.

解放的

emancipatory

解放。

Liberating.

相对主义

relativism

认为所有价值观或伦理准则都是等价的,并且都与其所处的背景相关;因此,不可能说其中任何一个准则在任何意义上都比其他准则“更好”。

The idea that all codes of values or ethics are equivalent and exist in relation to their context; it is therefore not possible to say that any one of them is in any sense ‘better’ than any other.

后现代主义批判的核心在于,历史主义已经消亡,应该被摒弃,不再作为严肃的学术研究。为了反驳这种观点,历史学家指出,历史研究的缺陷不仅被严重夸大,而且对过去采取广义的历史主义立场在文化上是不可或缺的。它是对当下和未来进行批判性社会思考的前提。正如乔伊斯·阿普尔比和林恩·亨特所言。正如玛格丽特·雅各布所言,“拒绝所有元叙事是毫无意义的,因为叙事和元叙事正是使现实世界中的行动成为可能的故事类型。” 53对过去作为“他者”的意识、一套连接过去与现在的连贯叙事,以及一种解释性的历史写作模式,都是实践的必需品。如果彻底放弃了解过去的雄心,我们将永远无法确定现在是如何形成的。历史的社会功能不容轻易放弃。

The nub of the Postmodernist critique is that historicism is dead and should be abandoned as a serious intellectual endeavour. In fending off this attack, historians point out not only that the weaknesses of historical enquiry have been grossly exaggerated but that a broadly historicist stance towards the past is culturally indispensable. It is a precondition of critical social thought about the present and the future. As Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob put it, ‘Rejecting all meta-narratives cannot make sense, because narratives and meta-narratives are the kinds of stories that make action in the world possible’.53 A consciousness of the past as ‘other’, a set of coherent narratives linking past and present, and an explanatory mode of historical writing are all practical necessities. If the ambition to know the past is completely surrendered, we shall never be able to determine how the present came to be. The social function of history is not to be so lightly abandoned.

第七章

VII

理论上的反对意见,实际的解答

Theoretical objections, practical answers

后现代主义质疑历史知识的可靠性,为一种可以追溯到文艺复兴时期的怀疑主义注入了新的活力。史料的易错性(或“不确定性”)、已证实的事实与赋予其意义的解释之间的鸿沟,以及历史学家在工作中投入的个人和政治因素,长期以来都受制于命运。实证主义谴责这些因素是对科学严谨性的严重背离;后现代主义则将它们纳入对理性探究的更广泛的批判之中。无论从实证主义还是后现代主义的视角来看,历史学的认识论基础都显得不够稳固。这主要是因为抽象理论最好在严格控制的条件下进行检验,而历史学是一门混合学科,难以简单地归类。历史学家追求的多元甚至有时相互矛盾的目标赋予了这门学科独特的特征,但也使其容易受到理论攻击。

In questioning the credentials of historical knowledge, Postmodernism has breathed fresh life into a strand of scepticism that stretches back to the Renaissance. The fallibility (or ‘indeterminacy’) of the sources, the gap between validated facts and the explanations that endow them with meaning, and the personal and political investment that historians bring to their work, have long been hostages to fortune. Positivism condemned them as damning departures from scientific rigour; Postmodernism subsumes them in a larger refutation of rational enquiry. Whether viewed from a positivist or a Postmodern standpoint, the epistemological credentials of history do not look impressive. Primarily this is because abstract theories are best tested in carefully controlled conditions, whereas history is a hybrid discipline that defies simple pigeonholing. The divergent and sometimes contradictory objectives that historians pursue are what gives the subject its distinctive character, but they also lay it open to theoretical attack.

尽管一些历史学家仍然试图在站不住脚的经验主义中寻求庇护,但54位更具思考的学科捍卫者承认,历史学存在着重大的理论缺陷。像阿普尔比、亨特和雅各布,以及理查德·J·埃文斯这样的评论家都明白,历史知识总是涉及现在与过去的交汇,而现在可能对过去产生过大的影响。他们知道,史料并非直接“说话”,事实是经过选择而非被赋予的,历史解释依赖于后见之明的运用,而且每一种历史叙述在某种程度上都受到作者审美和政治偏好的影响。他们的辩护基于这样的论点:理论上这些特征可能会使历史研究失效,但实际上,它们可以——而且也确实——被控制在可控的范围内。历史既非现实主义的典范,也非相对主义的受害者。它处于一种中间立场,既坚持学术程序,又力求使研究途径尽可能接近“真实”,远离“相对”。 55历史学家属于一个专业群体,其主要职责之一是维护学术标准,并约束随意解释。同行评审机制发挥着强有力的作用,确保历史学家在他们认为重要的研究领域内,尽可能忠实于现存的历史证据。

Though some historians still seek refuge in an untenable empiricism,54 the more thoughtful defenders of the discipline concede that it is open to major theoretical objections. Commentators such as Appleby, Hunt and Jacob, or Richard J. Evans know that historical knowledge always involves an encounter between present and past in which the present may weigh too heavily on the past. They know that the sources do not ‘speak’ directly, that facts are selected, not given, that historical explanation depends on the application of hindsight, and that every historical account is in some sense moulded by the aesthetic and political preferences of the writer. Their defence rests on the contention that, while in theory these features may invalidate historical work, in practice they can be – and are – confined to manageable proportions. History is neither an exemplar of realism nor a victim to relativism. It occupies a middle ground in which scholarly procedures are upheld in order to keep the avenues of enquiry as close to the ‘real’ and as far removed from the ‘relative’ as possible.55 Historians are members of a profession, one of whose principal functions is to enforce standards of scholarship and to restrain waywardness of interpretation. Peer-group scrutiny operates as a powerful mechanism for ensuring that within the area of enquiry they find significant, historians are as true as they can be to the surviving evidence of the past.

历史学家的保障措施:自我意识和同行评议

The historian’s safeguards: self-awareness and peer review

在这方面,有三项要求尤为突出。首先,历史学家应当审视自身的假设和价值观,以了解它们与当前研究的关系。E·P·汤普森的魅力之一在于他毫不掩饰自己的倾向——甚至承认《英国工人阶级的形成》一书中有一章带有论战色彩56这种意识对于那些并无特定偏见的历史学家而言尤为重要,因为他们很容易成为自身背景人群习以为常的价值观的无意识传播者。正如泽尔丁所强调的,这正是历史学家应具备的品质之一(见第168页)——也是为何我们应该欢迎坦诚的历史写作方式,至少在作者的序言或引言中可以体现这一点。其次,如果将研究方向明确地设定为一个假设,并根据证据接受、拒绝或修正该假设,那么将研究结果简单地归入预期之中的风险就会降低——作者始终是第一个尝试找出自身解释漏洞的人。历史学家的恰当做法并非回避社会相关性,而是充分意识到自己为何会被特定历史片段所吸引,并对相反的证据和支持的证据都给予同等的尊重。一些非实践领域的批评家有时会忘记,历史研究的乐趣很大程度上来自于发现意料之外的结果,并将自己的论点推向新的方向。第三,也是最重要的一点,历史学家必须将他们的研究成果提交给……历史语境的重要性不容忽视。反对“当代主义”和解构主义的理由在于,它们将事件和人物从真实的时空背景中剥离出来,强行塞进一个对当时时代而言毫无意义的概念框架中。事实上,历史学家如今比以往更难落入这种陷阱。过去五十年间,历史研究的范围不断扩大,优秀的史学著作也反映了这一扩展,这意味着当今的历史学家应该比他们的前辈拥有更敏锐的语境意识;同行评议在这一领域发挥着尤为重要的作用。

Three requirements stand out in this respect. First, the historian should scrutinize his or her own assumptions and values in order to see how they relate to the enquiry in hand. One of the attractions of E.P. Thompson is that he made no secret of his sympathies – even acknowledging that one chapter in The Making of the English Working Class was polemic.56 This kind of awareness is particularly important in the case of those historians who have no particular axe to grind but can all too easily be the unconscious vector of values taken for granted by people of their own background. That is one reason why, as emphasized by Zeldin, self-knowledge is a desirable trait among historians (see p. 168) – and also why the confessional mode of historical writing should be welcomed, at least in the author’s preface or introduction. Second, the risk of assimilating findings to expectations is reduced if the direction imparted to the enquiry is cast in the form of an explicit hypothesis, to be accepted, rejected or modified in the light of the evidence – with the author always the first to try to pick holes in his or her interpretation. The appropriate conduct for historians is not to avoid social relevance but to be fully aware of why they are attracted to their particular slice of history and to show as much respect for contrary as for supporting evidence. It is sometimes forgotten by non-practising critics that much of the excitement of historical research comes from finding results that were not anticipated and pushing one’s thesis into a new direction. Third and above all, historians must submit their work to the discipline of historical context. The case against ‘presentism’ and deconstructionism is that they remove events and personalities from their real time and place, forcing them into a conceptual framework that would have meant nothing to the age in question. In fact historians have much less excuse for falling into this trap than they used to. The enlargement of the scope of historical studies during the past fifty years, and the way in which the best historical syntheses reflect this enlargement, means that historians today should have a much better-developed sense of context than their predecessors did; peer review operates particularly effectively in this area.

论战

polemic

一场激烈而充满愤怒的争论。

An angry and impassioned argument.

同行评审

peer review

学术论文通常会经过其他学者的详细审查,这个过程被称为同行评审。

Academic work is usually scrutinized in detail by other academics in a process known as peer review.

尊重这三条准则能大大减少历史写作中的歪曲。然而,这并不能终结争论和分歧。如果认为所有历史学家都能达到高度的自我认知,明确阐述他们的工作假设,并一丝不苟地尊重历史背景,那么他们就能在历史判断上达成一致,那就大错特错了。没有人能对自己的假设或前人的假设完全置身事外;证据通常可以支持相互矛盾的假设;而且,由于史料永远无法完整地重现过去的状况,对历史背景的理解也取决于学者个人的洞察力和经验,以及丰富的想象力。历史研究的本质决定了,无论研究方法多么严谨专业,都必然存在多种不同的解释。这应该被视为一种优势而非劣势。因为历史知识的进步,既源于不同解释之间的辩论,也源于学者个人的努力。历史学界活跃的辩论,也与我们对当下和未来社会的不同愿景密切相关。如果历史没有争议,它就无法为当今社会问题的批判性辩论提供素材。历史诠释的多元化是成熟民主政治必不可少的——尽管常常被低估的——前提条件。过去永远不会成为争议的焦点,也不应该成为争议的焦点。

Respect for these three injunctions does much to limit the amount of distortion in historical writing. It does not, however, put an end to debate and disagreement. It would be wrong to suppose that if all historians could only attain a high degree of self-awareness, make their working hypotheses explicit and maintain a scrupulous respect for historical context they would then concur in their historical judgements. Nobody can become completely dispassionate about his or her own assumptions or those of earlier ages; the evidence can usually be read in support of conflicting hypotheses; and, since the sources never recapture a past situation in its entirety, the sense of historical context depends also on an imaginative flair that will vary according to the insight and experience of the individual scholar. The nature of historical enquiry is such that, however rigorously professional the approach, there will always be a plurality of interpretation. That should be counted as a strength rather than a weakness. For advances in historical knowledge arise as much from the play of debate between rival interpretations as from the efforts of the individual scholar. And the same debates that enliven the historical profession are intimately connected with the alternative visions we hold of our society in the present and the future. If history was uncontested it would fail to provide the materials for critical debate on the social issues of the day. Plurality of historical interpretation is an essential – if underestimated – prerequisite for a mature democratic politics. The past will never be placed beyond controversy; nor should it be.

归纳推理

Inductive reasoning

历史学家必须在演绎推理归纳推理之间取得平衡。当结论完全由其所依据的信息(即前提)支撑时,就采用演绎推理。例如,如果前提是:a) 所有猫都是脊椎动物;b) 托比是一只猫,那么我们可以肯定地推断出托比是脊椎动物;事实上,不可能有其他推论。虚构侦探夏洛克·福尔摩斯的推理方法很好地诠释了演绎推理。他曾说过,当所有其他可能性都被排除后,剩下的,无论多么不可能,都一定是答案。斜体字的重点在于,许多人会允许他们基于日常经验的预期影响他们对数据的解读。这就是归纳推理。例如,一位到伦敦旅游的游客看到许多红色公交车和黑色出租车,可能会得出这样的结论:所有伦敦公交车都是红色的,所有伦敦出租车都是黑色的,这种结论虽然可以理解,但仍然是错误的。数学家完全依赖演绎推理,对科学家们倾向于使用归纳推理往往感到不耐烦;而对于历史学家来说,由于证据常常零散且不完整,他们更容易过度依赖纯粹的归纳推理。每当历史学家从单一事件或例子进行概括时,他们就是在运用归纳推理,而进一步的证据很可能证明这种概括是错误的。

Historians have to achieve a balance between deductive and inductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is employed when the conclusion is entirely supported by the information on which it is based, known as the premise. Thus, if the premises are a) that all cats are vertebrates and b) that Toby is a cat, we can safely deduce that Toby is a vertebrate; indeed no other deduction is possible. Deductive reasoning is well illustrated in the methods adopted by the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who once remarked that, when all other possibilities have been eliminated, what is left, however unlikely, must be the solution. The point of the italics is that many people allow their expectations, drawn from everyday experience, to influence their interpretation of data. This is inductive reasoning. For example, a visitor to London who saw a host of red buses and black taxis might, understandably but still wrongly, conclude that all London buses are red and all London taxis are black. Mathematicians rely entirely on deductive reasoning and can be impatient of scientists’ tendency to slip into the inductive; for historians, with their often patchy and incomplete evidence, the temptation to rely too much on purely inductive reasoning is even stronger. Every time a historian generalizes from a single incident or example he or she is employing inductive reasoning, which further evidence might well show to be mistaken.

否认大屠杀

Holocaust denial

二战末期,盟军攻占了德国集中营,揭露了纳粹对犹太人、吉普赛人和其他族群进行种族灭绝的政策证据。然而,与此同时,在一些国家的极右翼和反犹团体的推动下,否认大屠杀的发生也开始抬头。否认大屠杀的一个典型手法是,表面上装出一副体面的学术模样,似乎在认真客观地审视有关大屠杀的证据。例如,他们经常指出,没有任何希特勒签署的下令屠杀犹太人的文件留存至今。由此,他们荒谬地论证希特勒不可能对大屠杀一无所知。否认大屠杀的本质是系统性地压制或歪曲证据。(关于大卫·欧文的案件,请参见第二章。)

In the closing stages of the Second World War, allied armies overran German concentration camps and uncovered evidence of the Nazis’ policy of exterminating Jews, Gypsies and other groups. However, a move also got under way fuelled by extreme right-wing and anti-semitic groups in different countries to deny that the Holocaust had ever happened. A characteristic approach of Holocaust denial is to adopt an outwardly respectable, academic manner and to appear to subject the evidence for the Holocaust to careful and objective scrutiny. For example, it is often pointed out that no document has survived with Hitler’s signature on it ordering the murder of Jews. From this it is argued, implausibly, that Hitler can have known nothing of the Holocaust. Holocaust denial is based upon the systematic suppression or distortion of the evidence. (For the court case involving David Irving, see Chapter 2.)

辉格党历史

Whig history

辉格党是十八、十九世纪主导英国政坛的政治团体。辉格党起源于英国革命战争中的议会派,并始终坚持议会的权利和特权。辉格党人认为,议会的种种优点可以通过对英国历史的一种特殊解读来解释。他们将英国革命解读为一场与王室为恢复议会古老权利而进行的长期斗争。他们深信,这些权利在盎格鲁-撒克逊时代曾被享有,但在诺曼征服时期丧失。历史学家早已证明辉格党的这种历史叙述是神话,但其所宣扬的“迈向今日巅峰”的主题却广受欢迎。赫伯特·巴特菲尔德批评辉格党的历史观完全以现代视角看待中世纪或都铎王朝的制度,而忽略了当时的时代背景;左翼历史学家则因其过于自信和爱国主义的论调而对辉格党的历史观嗤之以鼻。然而,辉格党的普遍倾向是将现代状况或态度视为完美的巅峰,然后回顾过去以了解我们是如何达到这一目标的,这种倾向绝不仅限于宪政史,在妇女史或科学史和医学史等各种领域都能找到。

The Whigs were a political group that dominated British politics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Whiggery developed out of the parliamentary side in the English Civil War and retained a strong attachment to the rights and privileges of Parliament, whose virtues, the Whigs believed, could be explained by a particular reading of English history. The Whigs interpreted it as a long battle with the Crown for the restoration of the ancient rights of Parliament, which they fondly believed had been enjoyed in Anglo-Saxon times but lost at the time of the Norman Conquest. Historians have long since shown the Whig version of events to be myth, but the general theme of progress towards a pinnacle in the present day remained very popular. Herbert Butterfield attacked Whig history for looking at medieval or Tudor institutions in entirely modern terms and not taking the contemporary context into account; left-wing historians have rejected Whig history for its over-confident, patriotic tone. The general Whig tendency, however, to see modern conditions or attitudes as the peak of perfection and then to look to the past to see how we attained it, is by no means confined to constitutional history and can be found in such diverse fields as women’s history or the history of science and medicine.

延伸阅读

Further reading

EH Carr《什么是历史?》,企鹅出版社,1961年。

E.H. Carr, What is History?, Penguin, 1961.

GR Elton《历史的实践》,Fontana出版社,1969年。

G.R. Elton, The Practice of History, Fontana, 1969.

WH Walsh《历史哲学导论》,第3版,Hutchinson出版社,1967年。

W.H. Walsh, An Introduction to Philosophy of History, 3rd edn, Hutchinson, 1967.

Richard Evans《为历史辩护》,Granta,1997 年。

Richard Evans, In Defence of History, Granta, 1997.

Ludmilla Jordanova《实践中的历史》,Arnold出版社,2000年。

Ludmilla Jordanova, History in Practice, Arnold, 2000.

RG Collingwood《历史的观念》,牛津大学出版社,1946年。

R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, Oxford University Press, 1946.

Keith Jenkins《论“什么是历史?”》,Routledge出版社,1995年。

Keith Jenkins, On ‘What is History?’, Routledge, 1995.

Alun Munslow《解构历史》,Routledge出版社,1997年。

Alun Munslow, Deconstructing History, Routledge, 1997.

Beverley Southgate《历史上的后现代主义》,Routledge出版社,2003年。

Beverley Southgate, Postmodernism in History, Routledge, 2003.

Hayden White《形式的内容》,约翰·霍普金斯大学出版社,1987 年。

Hayden White, The Content of the Form, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.

Joyce Appleby、Lynn HuntMargaret Jacob《讲述历史的真相》,诺顿出版社,1997 年。

Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt & Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth about History, Norton, 1997.

笔记

Notes

  1   GR Elton,《历史的实践》,Fontana出版社,1969年。

  1  G.R. Elton, The Practice of History, Fontana, 1969.

  2  西奥多·泽尔丁,《我们眼中的自己》,《泰晤士报文学副刊》,1982 年 12 月 31 日。另见他的文章《布罗代尔之后》,《听众》 ,1981 年 11 月 5 日。

  2  Theodore Zeldin, ‘Ourselves as we see us’, Times Literary Supplement, 31 December 1982. See also his article, ‘After Braudel’, The Listener, 5 November 1981.

  3  例如,参见埃尔顿,《历史的实践》,第 vii-viii 页。

  3  See, for example, Elton, The Practice of History, pp. vii–viii.

  4   Lee Benson,《走向历史的科学研究》,Lippincott出版社,1972年。

  4  Lee Benson, Toward the Scientific Study of History, Lippincott, 1972.

  5   L. von Ranke,引自 Peter Novick,《那个高尚的梦想:‘客观性问题’与美国历史学界》,剑桥大学出版社,1988 年,第 28 页。

  5  L. von Ranke, quoted in Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical Profession, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 28.

  6  泽尔丁,《布罗代尔之后》。另请参阅他的文章“社会和总体历史”,《社会历史杂志》 ,X,1976 年,第 237-45 页。

  6  Zeldin, ‘After Braudel’. See also his article, ‘Social and total history’, Journal of Social History, X, 1976, pp. 237–45.

  7   KR Popper,《开放社会及其敌人》,第二卷,第五版,Routledge & Kegan Paul,1966 年,第 265 页。

  7  K.R. Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies, vol. II, 5th edn, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966, p. 265.

  8   Raphael Samuel(编),《人民历史与社会主义理论》,Routledge & Kegan Paul,1981 年,编者导言,第 xlv 页。

  8  Raphael Samuel (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, editor’s introduction, p. xlv.

  9   EH Carr,《什么是历史?》,企鹅出版社,1964 年,第 16 页,令人惊讶地犯了这个错误。

  9  E.H. Carr, What is History?, Penguin, 1964, p. 16, rather surprisingly falls into this error.

10阿克顿勋爵致剑桥现代史  撰稿人的信,1896 年,转载于弗里茨·斯特恩(编),《历史的各种形式》,第二版,麦克米伦出版社,1970 年,第 247 页。

10  Lord Acton, letter to the contributors to the Cambridge Modern History, 1896, reprinted in Fritz Stern (ed.), Varieties of History, 2nd edn, Macmillan, 1970, p. 247.

11  卡尔,《什么是历史?》第 120 页。

11  Carr, What is History? p. 120.

12   LB Namier,《历史大道》,Hamish Hamilton,1952 年,第 8 页。

12  L.B. Namier, Avenues of History, Hamish Hamilton, 1952, p. 8.

13   MM Postan,《事实与关联》,剑桥大学出版社,1970 年,第 51 页。

13  M.M. Postan, Fact and Relevance, Cambridge University Press, 1970, p. 51.

14   Elton,《历史实践》,第 74-82 页。

14  Elton, Practice of History, pp. 74–82.

15  参见 RC Richardson,《重访英国革命辩论》,Routledge 出版社,1988 年。

15  See R.C. Richardson, The Debate on the English Revolution Revisited, Routledge, 1988.

16   Marc Bloch,《历史学家的技艺》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,1954 年,第 65 页。

16  Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, Manchester University Press, 1954, p. 65.

17  波普尔的观点在布莱恩·麦基的《波普尔》(Fontana,1973 年)一书中得到了清晰的阐述。

17  Popper’s views are lucidly expounded in Bryan Magee, Popper, Fontana, 1973.

18   Joseph C. Miller,《历史与非洲/非洲与历史》,《美国历史评论》CIV,1999 年,第 27 页。

18  Joseph C. Miller ‘History and Africa/Africa and History’, American Historical Review, CIV, 1999, p. 27.

19   RF Holland,《欧洲非殖民化 1918–81》,麦克米伦出版社,1985 年。

19  R.F. Holland, European Decolonization 1918–81, Macmillan, 1985.

20   James Joll,《第一次世界大战的起源》,朗文出版​​社,1984 年。

20  James Joll, The Origins of the First World War, Longman, 1984.

21   Jakob Burckhardt,《意大利文艺复兴时期的文明》,Phaidon出版社,1960年,第1页。

21  Jakob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Phaidon, 1960, p. 1.

22这一点在埃尔顿的《历史实践》  中尤为明显。

22  This is particularly true of Elton, Practice of History.

23  理查德·科布,《第二身份》 ,牛津大学出版社,1969 年,第 47 页。另见泽尔丁在《法国 1848–1945》第一卷(牛津大学出版社,1973 年)第 7 页中发表的类似评论。

23  Richard Cobb, A Second Identity, Oxford University Press, 1969, p. 47. See also Zeldin’s comments in the same vein in France 1848–1945, vol. I, Oxford University Press, 1973, p. 7.

24  例如,参见 Pieter Geyl,《拿破仑:赞成与反对》,第 2 版,Cape 出版社,1964 年。

24  See, for example, Pieter Geyl, Napoleon: For and Against, 2nd edn, Cape, 1964.

25  例如,比较 Peter Laslett 的《我们失去的世界》(第二版,Methuen 出版社,1971 年)和 EP Thompson 的《辉格党人和猎人》(企鹅出版社,1977 年)。

25  Compare, for example, Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost, 2nd edn, Methuen, 1971, with E.P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters, Penguin, 1977.

26   Michael Howard,《历史的教训》,牛津大学出版社,1981 年,第 21 页。

26  Michael Howard, The Lessons of History, Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 21.

27   JB Bury,《历史科学》,1902 年,转载于 Stern,《历史的各种形式》,第 215 页。

27  J.B. Bury, ‘The science of history’, 1902, reprinted in Stern, Varieties of History, p. 215.

28   Adrian Wilson,“儿童史的萌芽:对 Philippe Ariès 的评价”,《历史与理论》第十九卷,1980 年,第 132-153 页。

28  Adrian Wilson, ‘The infancy of the history of childhood: an appraisal of Philippe Ariès’, History and Theory, XIX, 1980, pp. 132–53.

29   H. Butterfield,《辉格党对历史的解释》,企鹅出版社,1973 年,第 30 页。

29  H. Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History, Penguin, 1973, p. 30.

30  参见 Sheila Rowbotham,《隐藏的历史》,冥王星出版社,1973 年。

30  Cf. Sheila Rowbotham, Hidden from History, Pluto Press, 1973.

31  引自 JH Hexter,《论历史学家》,柯林斯出版社,1979 年,第 15 页。

31  Cited in J.H. Hexter, On Historians, Collins, 1979, p. 15.

32   Gordon Connell-Smith 和 Howell A. Lloyd,《历史的相关性》,Heinemann 出版社,1972 年,第 41 页。

32  Gordon Connell-Smith and Howell A. Lloyd, The Relevance of History, Heinemann, 1972, p. 41.

33   Elton,《历史实践》,第 31 页。

33  Elton, Practice of History, p. 31.

34  埃尔顿的保守主义信念最清晰地体现在他的两篇就职演讲中,即《过去的未来》(1968 年)和《英国历史》(1984 年),这两篇演讲后来被收录在他的著作《回归本质》(剑桥大学出版社,1991 年)中。

34  Elton’s conservative convictions are most clearly set out in his two inaugural lectures, ‘The future of the past’ (1968) and ‘The history of England’ (1984), reprinted in his Return to Essentials, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

35  罗兰·巴特,《图像、音乐、文本》,丰塔纳出版社,1977 年,第 42-48 页。

35  Roland Barthes, Image, Music, Text, Fontana, 1977, pp. 42–8.

36  索绪尔之后发展起来的文本理论在拉曼·塞尔登、彼得·威德森和彼得·布鲁克斯的《当代文学理论读者指南》(第4版,普伦蒂斯·霍尔出版社,1997年)中有详尽的阐述。

36  The textual theories that have grown up in the wake of Saussure are usefully set out in Raman Selden, Peter Widdowson and Peter Brookes, A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 4th edn, Prentice Hall, 1997.

37  有关福柯的良好介绍,请参阅 P. Rabinow(编)的《福柯读本》 ,企鹅出版社,1991 年。

37  For a good introduction, see P. Rabinow (ed.), The Foucault Reader, Penguin, 1991.

38  雅克·德里达,《论文字学》,约翰·霍普金斯大学出版社,1976 年,第 158 页。

38  Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976, p. 158.

39   Raphael Samuel,《解读标志》,历史工作坊杂志第 32 卷,1991 年,第 93 页。

39  Raphael Samuel, ‘Reading the signs’, History Workshop Journal, xxxii, 1991, p. 93.

40   Hayden White,《形式的内容》,约翰·霍普金斯大学出版社,1987 年,第 72 页。

40  Hayden White, The Content of the Form, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987, p. 72.

41  米歇尔·福柯,《知识考古学》,塔维斯托克出版社,1972 年。

41  Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge, Tavistock, 1972.

42   Keith Jenkins,《重新思考历史》,Routledge出版社,1991年,第68页。

42  Keith Jenkins, Re-Thinking History, Routledge, 1991, p. 68.

43  海登·怀特,引自诺维克,《那个高尚的梦想》,第 601 页。

43  Hayden White, quoted in Novick, That Noble Dream, p. 601.

44  例如,参见 Alun Munslow,《解构历史》,Routledge 出版社,1997 年;Keith Jenkins,《论“什么是历史?”》,Routledge 出版社,1995 年。

44  See, for example, Alun Munslow, Deconstructing History, Routledge, 1997; Keith Jenkins, On ‘What is History?’, Routledge, 1995.

45   Linda Colley 的《英国人:塑造民族,1707-1837》(耶鲁大学出版社,1992 年)是一个很好的例子,它进行了高度批判性的分析,而没有受到后现代主义的影响。

45  Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837, Yale University Press, 1992, is a good example of a highly critical analysis uninfluenced by Postmodernism.

46  关于对辉格党历史观的批判,参见 JCD Clark,《英国社会 1688–1832:旧制度时期的意识形态、社会结构和政治实践》,剑桥大学出版社,1985 年;以及 Conrad Russell,《英国革命的起因》,牛津大学出版社,1990 年。关于对工业革命概念的批判,参见 R. Floud 和 D. McCloskey(编),《1700 年以来的英国经济史》,2 卷,剑桥大学出版社,1981 年。

46  For attacks on the Whig interpretation of history, see J.C.D. Clark, English Society 1688–1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political Practice during the Ancien Régime, Cambridge University Press, 1985, and Conrad Russell, The Causes of the English Civil War, Oxford University Press, 1990. For attacks on the concept of the Industrial Revolution, see R. Floud and D. McCloskey (eds), The Economic History of Britain since 1700, 2 vols, Cambridge University Press, 1981.

47   Gareth Stedman Jones,《阶级语言:1832-1982 年英国工人阶级历史研究》,剑桥大学出版社,1983 年,第 107 页。

47  Gareth Stedman Jones, Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History 1832–1982, Cambridge University Press, 1983, p. 107.

48   H. John Field,《走向帝国生活纲领》,Clio出版社,1982年;John Tosh,“历史学家应该如何看待男性气质?对十九世纪英国的反思”,《历史工作坊杂志》 ,第38卷,1994年,第179-202页。

48  H. John Field, Toward a Programme of Imperial Life, Clio Press, 1982; John Tosh, ‘What should historians do with masculinity? Reflections on nineteenth-century Britain’, History Workshop Journal, XXXVIII, 1994, pp. 179–202.

49  有关这些趋势的回顾,请参阅 Peter Burke(编)的《历史写作的新视角》,Polity Press,1991 年。

49  For a review of these trends, see Peter Burke (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing, Polity Press, 1991.

50  例如,参见 Joan Scott,《性别与历史政治》,哥伦比亚大学出版社,1988 年。

50  See, for example, Joan Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, Columbia University Press, 1988.

51   Gabrielle M. Spiegel,“历史、历史主义和文本的社会逻辑”,《Speculum 》 ,LXV(1990),第 59-86 页。

51  Gabrielle M. Spiegel, ‘History, historicism, and the social logic of the text’, Speculum, LXV (1990), pp. 59–86.

52   Gertrude Himmelfarb,《凝视深渊》,Knopf出版社,1994年。

52  Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Looking Into the Abyss, Knopf, 1994.

53   Joyce Appleby、Lynn Hunt 和 Margaret Jacob,《讲述历史的真相》,诺顿出版社,1994 年,第 236 页。

53  Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About History, Norton, 1994, p. 236.

54   Elton,《回归本质》;Arthur Marwick,“历史研究的两种方法:形而上学(包括‘后现代主义’)和历史”,《当代史杂志》XXX,1995 年,第 5-35 页。

54  Elton, Return to Essentials; Arthur Marwick, ‘Two approaches to historical study: the metaphysical (including “Postmodernism”) and the historical’, Journal of Contemporary History, XXX, 1995, pp. 5–35.

55   Appleby、Hunt 和 Jacob,《讲述历史的真相》;Richard J. Evans,《为历史辩护》,Granta,1997 年。

55  Appleby, Hunt and Jacob, Telling the Truth About History; Richard J. Evans, In Defence of History, Granta, 1997.

56   EP Thompson,《英国工人阶级的形成》,修订版,企鹅出版社,1968 年,第 916 页。

56  E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, revised edn, Penguin, 1968, p. 916.

第八章

Chapter Eight

历史与社会理论

History and social theory

理论在历史学家的工作中应扮演何种角色?一些学者从马克思主义视角研究历史,发现运用社会理论有助于理解那些原本难以分析的过去。然而,另一些人则认为这种理论化是危险的,因为它扭曲事实以迎合理论。本章探讨了历史与不同社会理论之间的关系,并指出马克思主义或许能为历史学家提供比其批评者所认为的更为丰富的借鉴。

What role should theory play in the work of a historian? Some approach history from a Marxist point of view and find that the application of social theory helps to make sense of a past that might otherwise defy analysis. However, others see such theorizing as dangerous, twisting the facts to fit the theory. This chapter considers the relationship between history and different social theories. It suggests that Marxism in particular might have rather more to offer the historian than its detractors have allowed for.

如前一章所述,历史学家避免无意识地将自身偏见融入对历史的解读的方法之一,是提出假设,并用现有证据进行检验。这样的假设可能仅仅是历史学家在阅读相关二手文献后,针对当前历史问题提出的一个临时性解释。但仔细审视往往会发现其更深层次的内涵。假设并非仅仅是对特定历史情境的初步评估;它通常反映了关于社会本质和文化本质的某些假设;换言之,历史假设是对理论的应用。许多学科中,“理论”指的是从大量研究成果中提炼出概括性结论(有时甚至是规律)。历史学家几乎从不使用这个含义。对他们而言,“理论”通常指的是推动研究并影响其结果的解释框架。历史学家对这种做法的合法性存在着激烈的争论。一些历史学家坚定地拥护某种特定的理论取向;一些历史学家则持相反的观点。承认理论出发点可以提供的刺激,同时抵制将理论强加于历史证据之上;另一些人则认为任何对理论的使用都是对历史学科自主性的阴险侵蚀。

I suggested in the previous chapter that one of the ways in which historians can guard against unconsciously assimilating their interpretations of the past to their own bias is by formulating hypotheses to be tested against the available evidence. Such a hypothesis may be no more than a provisional explanation suggested to the historian by a reading of the relevant secondary authorities and exclusive to the historical problem in hand. But a closer inspection often reveals a more elevated parentage. A hypothesis is not just a preliminary assessment of a particular historical conjuncture in its own terms; it usually reflects certain assumptions about the nature of society and the nature of culture; in other words, historical hypotheses amount to an application of theory. In many disciplines ‘theory’ represents the abstracting of generalizations (sometimes laws) from an accumulation of research findings. Historians hardly ever use the term in this sense. Theory for them usually means the framework of interpretation that gives impetus to an enquiry and influences its outcome. Historians sharply differ about the legitimacy of this procedure. Some are strongly committed to a particular theoretical orientation; some acknowledge the stimulus that a theoretical point of departure can offer, while resisting any imposition of theory on the historical evidence; others regard any use of theory as an insidious encroachment on the autonomy of history as a discipline.

当前的历史研究实践深受两大截然不同的理论体系的影响。较新的理论体系着眼于意义和表征的问题。传统上,历史学家依赖于史料批判的技巧来捕捉过去人们赋予自身经验的意义。然而,经验越是遥远和疏离,这种方法就越显得不足。随着文化史研究范围的拓展,历史学家越来越重视其他学科的洞见——精神分析、文学理论,尤其是文化人类学第九章将更全面地探讨文化意义诠释的问题,以及许多历史学家如今对这些学科的借鉴。第二大理论体系旨在理解整个社会:它们如何维系,以及它们如何随时间推移而变化(或保持不变)。它包含着极其丰富的思想传统,至少可以追溯到启蒙运动时期。实际上,任何试图理解前现代和现代世界重大变革的历史学家都不能忽视社会理论。这就是马克思主义曾经如此具有影响力,以及即便作为政治纲领已经瓦解,其影响力依然不减的主要原因。本章首先回顾关于社会理论优缺点的普遍争论;然后详细考察马克思主义及其应用。

The current practice of history is strongly influenced by two quite distinct bodies of theory. The more recent addresses the problem of meaning and representation. Traditionally historians have relied on their techniques of source criticism in order to capture the meanings that people in the past have given to their experience. Yet the more remote and alienating the experience, the more inadequate that methodology becomes. As the scope of cultural history has broadened, historians have increasingly acknowledged the insights of other disciplines – psychoanalysis, literary theory and above all cultural anthropology. Chapter 9 will examine more fully the problems of interpreting cultural meaning and the debt that many historians now acknowledge towards these disciplines. The second body of theory seeks to understand whole societies: how they hold together, and how they change over time (or not, as the case may be). It comprises an extraordinarily rich intellectual tradition, going back at least to the Enlightenment. In practice no historian seeking to understand the major changes in the pre-modern and modern world can afford to ignore social theory. That is the main reason why Marxism has been so influential, and why it continues to be so despite its collapse as a political programme. In this chapter I first review the general debate about the merits and demerits of social theory; I then examine Marxism and its application in some detail.

文化人类学

cultural anthropology

研究人们在社会(通常是小规模社会)中生活所依据的文化意义。

The study of the cultural meanings by which people live in society (usually small-scale societies).

I

对抽象理论的需求

The need for abstract theory

广义而言,社会理论源于历史解释三个方面所提出的问题。首先,难以把握特定时期人类经验各个维度之间的相互关联。对于大多数十九世纪末之前的历史学家来说,这在实践中并非主要问题,因为他们的研究兴趣往往局限于政治史和宪政史;因此,对政治共同体的一些概念就足以满足他们的需求。但到了二十世纪,随着历史研究范围的扩大,以及……证据的数量,以及专题专业化的压力,都要求我们具备更强的抽象思维能力。我们在第三章中看到,历史学家很容易陷入将过去割裂为“政治史”、“经济史”、“思想史”和“社会史”的陷阱,而“总体史”的概念正是作为一种纠正而产生的(见第83页)。但是,如果没有关于人类经验的各个组成部分如何相互联系形成整体的概念——即关于人类社会最广义结构的理论——总体史就无法实现。这类概念大多依赖于与物理世界的类比。社会曾被设想为有机体、机制和结构。每一种比喻都试图超越任何一个领域决定其他领域的粗浅观念,并表达人类行为和思想的主要范畴之间相互依存或相互促进的关系。

Broadly speaking, social theories arise from the problems presented by three aspects of historical explanation. There is first the difficulty of grasping the inter-relatedness of every dimension of human experience at a given time. For most historians up to the end of the nineteenth century this was not in practice a major problem, since their interest tended to be confined to political and constitutional history; accordingly some notion of the body politic was all the conceptual equipment they required. But during the twentieth century the enlargement in the scope of historical enquiry and in the volume of evidence, together with the pressures towards thematic specialization, demanded an ever greater capacity to think in terms of abstractions. We saw in Chapter 3 how easily historians fall into the trap of seeing the past as compartmentalized into ‘political’, ‘economic’, ‘intellectual’ and ‘social’ history, and how the idea of ‘total history’ arose as a corrective (see p. 83). But total history is unattainable without some concept of how the component aspects of human experience are linked together to form a whole – some theory of the structure of human society in its widest sense. Most concepts of this kind depend heavily on analogies with the physical world. Society has been variously conceived as an organism, a mechanism and a structure. Each of these metaphors represents an attempt to go beyond the crude notion that any one sphere determines the rest, and to express the reciprocal or mutually reinforcing relationship between the main categories of human action and thought.

探究历史变革的动力

Identifying the motor of historical change

第二个需要运用理论的问题是历史变迁。历史学家的大部分时间都花在解释变迁——或者说解释变迁的缺失。这种主导性的关注点不可避免地引出了一个问题:历史上的重大转型是否具有共同特征?历史变迁是否由某种动力驱动?如果是,这种动力又是什么?更具体地说,工业化是否必须遵循某种特定的经济发展路径?我们能否在历史中找到革命情境的必要组成部分?在构建特定案例的假设时,历史学家常常受到这类理论的吸引力影响——例如,人口统计学是关键所在 1 ,或者社会中最持久的变革并非源于自下而上的革命诉求 2 ,而是源于家长式统治阶级所允许的渐进式改革。

The second problem that invites the application of theory is that of historical change. Historians spend most of their time explaining change – or its absence. This dominant preoccupation inevitably raises the question of whether the major transitions in history display common characteristics. Is historical change driven by a motor, and if so what does the motor consist of? More specifically, does industrialization require adherence to one particular path of economic development? Can one identify in history the essential components of a revolutionary situation? In framing their hypotheses in particular instances historians are often influenced by the attractions of this kind of theory – for example the idea that demography holds the key1 or that the most durable changes in society arise from the gradualist reforms conceded by paternalistic ruling classes rather than from revolutionary demands articulated from below.2

人口统计学

demography

人口增长与发展的研究。

The study of the growth and development of population.

渐进主义者

gradualist

进展缓慢,循序渐进。

Proceeding slowly, making very gradual progress.

家长式作风

paternalistic

自上而下地推行变革和改革,即由当权者为下属实施,而不是由受益者自己引入。

Instituting changes and reforms from ‘on high’, i.e. carried out by those in authority for those below them, rather than introduced by the beneficiaries themselves.

探寻历史的意义

Seeking the meaning of history

第三,也是最具雄心的,是那些不仅试图解释历史变革如何发生,而且试图解释所有变革方向的理论;这些理论旨在通过赋予意义来诠释人类的命运。历史。中世纪的作家将历史视为从创世到末日审判的线性过渡,由神圣的天意掌控。到了十八世纪,这种观点世俗化为进步的观念:历史被解读为物质和精神进步的故事,其最终结果是理性的胜利和人类的幸福。这种观点的修正版本在十九世纪仍然占据着重要的地位:在欧洲大陆,历史意味着民族认同的兴起及其在民族国家中的政治表达;对于英国的辉格党历史学家而言,历史意味着宪政自由的增长。鉴于二十世纪历史所留下的破坏痕迹,如今对进步的坚定信仰或许已不多见但进步变革的理论仍然是经济和社会领域许多历史解读的基础,历史学家频繁使用“工业化”和“现代化”等词汇便证明了这一点。

Third, and most ambitiously, there are the theories that seek to explain not merely how historical change takes place but the direction in which all change is moving; these theories are concerned to interpret human destiny by ascribing a meaning to history. Medieval writers conceived history as a linear transition from the Creation to the Last Judgement, controlled by Divine Providence. By the eighteenth century that view had been secularized as the idea of progress: history was interpreted as a story of material and intellectual improvement whose outcome in the future would be the triumph of reason and human happiness. Modified versions of that outlook continued to have a powerful hold in the nineteenth century: on the European continent history meant the rise of national identities and their political expression in the nation-state; for the Whig historians of England it meant the growth of constitutional liberties. Full-blown professions of faith in progress may be rare today,3 given the trail of destruction that marked the history of the twentieth century; but theories of progressive change still underpin many historical interpretations in the economic and social sphere, as is shown by the frequency with which historians reach for such words as ‘industrialization’ and ‘modernization’.

对理论的否定

The rejection of theory

尽管这三种历史理论在分析上各有不同,但它们都致力于从特殊到普遍的考察,以期理解历史的整体意义。人们或许会认为这是一种自然的发展进程,是所有知识领域共同遵循的。然而,许多历史学家却完全拒绝使用理论。他们认为拒绝理论的原因可能有两点。第一种观点承认历史中可能存在模式和规律,但认为这些模式和规律无法通过严谨的探究方法获得。要对任何一个历史事件做出完全令人信服的解释已属不易,而要将它们串联起来或归入某个统领性的范畴,则会使研究者与可验证的事实之间产生难以逾越的鸿沟。正如彼得·马蒂亚斯(在此扮演反方角色)所承认的那样:

Although these three types of historical theory are analytically distinct, they all share an interest in moving from the particular to the general in an effort to make sense of the subject as a whole. It might be supposed that this is a natural progression, shared by all branches of knowledge. A great many historians, however, reject the use of theory completely. They see two possible grounds for doing so. The first argument concedes that there may be patterns and regularities in history but maintains that they are not accessible to disciplined enquiry. It is hard enough to provide an entirely convincing explanation of any one event in history, but to link them in a series or within an overarching category places the enquirer at an intolerable distance from the verifiable facts. As Peter Mathias (here acting as devil’s advocate) concedes:

过往的历史提供了大量的个案,几乎可以佐证任何普遍性的论断。用假设这种简单粗暴的工具去否定历史,并留下深刻印象,实在是太容易了。4

The bounty of the past provides individual instances in plenty to support virtually any general proposition. It is only too easy to beat history over the head with the blunt instrument of a hypothesis and leave an impression.4

在这种观点看来,理论史是思辨史,应该留给哲学家和先知们去研究。5

On this view, theoretical history is speculative history and should be left to philosophers and prophets.5

唱反调

devil’s advocate

故意提出相反论点以进行辩论的人。这个词源于梵蒂冈过去决定册封新圣人人选的程序,在这个程序中,魔鬼代言人会陈述反对候选人的理由。

One who deliberately sets out to put the opposite case for the purposes of debate. The term comes from the process whereby the Vatican used to decide on proposals for creating a new saint, where the devil’s advocate presented the case against the candidate.

理论有可能“取代”事实,这种可能性绝对不容小觑。现存历史资料中存在诸多空白。历史记录,尤其是因果关系方面缺乏确凿证据,为纯粹的臆测和一厢情愿的想法留下了很大的空间。同时,与许多历史问题相关的证据范围如此之广,以至于选择在所难免——而支配这种选择的原则可能会影响研究结果。近几个世纪的记录如此浩瀚且多样,以至于仅仅提出不同的问题就可能得出相互矛盾的结论。就美国历史而言,艾琳·克拉迪托尔(Aileen Kraditor)对此阐述如下:

The possibility that theory will ‘take over’ from the facts is certainly not to be made light of. The gaps in the surviving historical record, and especially the lack of clinching evidence in matters of causation, leave a great deal of scope for mere supposition and wishful thinking. At the same time, the range of evidence bearing on many historical problems is so large that selection is unavoidable – and the principles governing that selection may prejudice the result of the enquiry. The record of recent centuries is so voluminous and varied that contradictory results can be obtained simply by asking different questions. In the context of American history, Aileen Kraditor puts this point as follows:

如果一位历史学家问:“史料是否提供了工人和奴隶之间激烈斗争的证据?”史料会回答:“当然有。”如果另一位历史学家问:“史料是否提供了过去两个世纪以来美国民众普遍默许既定秩序的证据?”史料会回答:“当然有。” 6

If one historian asks, ‘Do the sources provide evidence of militant struggles among workers and slaves?’ the sources will reply, ‘Certainly’. And if another asks, ‘Do the sources provide evidence of widespread acquiescence in the established order among the American population throughout the past two centuries?’ the sources will reply, ‘Of course’.6

几乎任何理论都可以通过收集大量符合预期模式的个别实例来“证明”。

Almost any theory can be ‘proved’ by marshalling an impressive collection of individual instances to fit the desired pattern.

默认

acquiescence

验收。

Acceptance.

防止过度理论化的保障措施

Safeguards against excessive theorizing

理论导向的历史研究固然容易陷入这些危险——但必须承认,许多拒绝理论、对自身选择和解读证据的假设和价值观浑然不觉的历史学家,其研究也同样如此。前进的方向并非退回到站不住脚的经验主义,而是对理论的检验设定更高的标准。与那些试图追随史料指引的历史学家相比,那些带着明确假设展开研究的历史学家更有可能避免陷入一厢情愿的思维模式。当无法避免对证据进行选择时,必须选择具有代表性的证据,以揭示支持和反对的证据。某个理论或许能够解释与当前问题相关的部分证据,但这还不够;它必须与整体证据的分量相符。正如克拉迪托所言,“被省略的数据对于理解已包含的数据并非至关重要”。所有这一切都假设历史学家对其理论保持一定的超脱态度,并随时准备因缺乏证据而改变研究方向。但一旦这些把关措施被忽视,整个历史学界就会竭力捍卫它们。历史学家最乐于见到的莫过于引用相反的证据和另类的解释来质疑他们自己的研究成果。同事们——尤其是那些似乎执迷不悟的人。此外,大量的历史综合研究包括比较相互竞争的理论的优劣,以确定哪种理论(如果有的话)能够阐明所讨论的问题。理论史中的推测倾向不会长期不受制约。

Theory-oriented history is certainly prone to these dangers – but so too, it must be recognized, is the work of many historians who reject theory and remain blissfully unaware of the assumptions and values that inform their own selection and interpretation of evidence. The way forward is not to retreat into an untenable empiricism but to apply much higher standards to the testing of theory. Wishful thinking is more likely to be controlled by historians who approach their enquiries with explicit hypotheses than by those who try to follow where the sources lead. When selection of the evidence cannot be avoided, it must be a representative selection which will reveal both contrary and supporting indicators. A given theory may account for part of the evidence relating to the problem in hand, but that is not enough; it must be compatible with the weight of the evidence overall. In Kraditor’s words, ‘the data omitted must not be essential to the understanding of the data included’.7 All this assumes a certain detachment on the part of historians towards their theories, and a readiness to change tack because of the lack of evidence. But where these controls are neglected, the profession as a whole is vigilant in their defence. Historians are seldom happier than when citing contrary evidence and alternative interpretations to cast doubt on the work of their colleagues – especially those who seem to have a bee in their bonnet. Moreover, a great deal of historical synthesis consists of comparing the merits of competing theories in order to determine which, if any, illuminates the problem under discussion. The speculative tendencies in theoretical history do not go unchecked for long.

II

理论与历史研究相关吗?

Is theory relevant to historical enquiry?

第二种更具挑战性的攻击路线质疑历史理论构建的合法性,理由是它否定了历史学科的本质。这种论点认为,人类文化如此丰富多样,以至于我们只能在特定的时代和地点理解人:“人始终是一个不可还原的主体,是世界上唯一的非客体”。因此,人类行为模式是一种错觉。历史学家的职责是按照事件和情境的独特个性和自身逻辑重构它们;对它们的解释也仅适用于特定的情境。比较在时间和空间上分离的历史情境毫无益处——事实上,这样做只会造成巨大的损失,因为结果只会模糊每个情境的本质。正如大卫·汤姆森所言,“历史态度,顾名思义,是反对系统构建的”。这种观点由来已久,它抓住了十九世纪历史主义的精髓。兰克要求历史学家研究过去“是为了展现事物本来的样子”,其主要目的是为了对抗启蒙运动历史学家和黑格尔追随者所构建的宏大进化论框架。兰克的叙事风格反对抽象和概括,却非常擅长展现事件的特殊性。古典历史主义立场既不利于社会结构的全面理论,也不利于社会变迁理论,它要求每个时代都应以其自身的视角进行评价,而这种要求与任何将历史视为朝着理想目标前进的进程的观点都难以调和。

The second and more challenging line of attack questions the legitimacy of theory-making in history on the grounds that it denies the very essence of the discipline. Human culture, the argument goes, is so richly diverse that we can only understand man in specific epochs and locations: ‘He remains an irreducible subject, the one non-object in the world’.8 Models of human behaviour are therefore a delusion. The business of the historian is to reconstruct events and situations in their unique individuality, and on their own terms; their interpretations apply only to particular sets of circumstances. Nothing is to be gained from comparing historical situations separated by time or space – indeed a great deal will be lost, since the result can only be to obscure the essentials of each. In David Thomson’s words, ‘The historical attitude, by definition, is hostile to system-making’.9 This view has a distinguished pedigree. It captures the essence of historicism as expounded in the nineteenth century. Ranke’s injunction that historians should study the past ‘to show how things actually were’ was intended primarily as an antidote to the great evolutionary schemes of the Enlightenment historians and the followers of Hegel. Ranke’s narrative style was hostile to abstraction and generalization and well suited to conveying the particularity of events. The classical historicist position is inimical both to comprehensive theories of social structure and to theories of social change, while its demand that every age should be evaluated in its own terms is difficult to reconcile with any view of history as progress towards a desirable goal.

决定论的危险

The dangers of determinism

这些否定历史理论的理由与另一个经常被着重强调的论点密切相关:这种理论不仅否认事件的“独特性”,也否认个体的尊严和人类能动性。传统的叙事方式若剥离任何解释框架,便能最大限度地发挥人格特质;而对社会结构和社会变迁中反复出现或典型特征的关注,则以牺牲真实鲜活的个体为代价,抬高了抽象概念。从这个角度来看,最糟糕的是第三类理论,其阴险之处在于赋予历史进程一种不可避免性,而个体无论现在还是将来都无力改变这种必然性;这种理论认为,所有历史理论都包含决定论的成分,而决定论是对人类自由的否定。 10 与决定论截然相反的是,它否定历史中任何超越偶然性和不可预见性之外的意义——这种观点为该学科主流中的许多历史学家所持有。 AJP·泰勒欣然告诉读者,研究过去唯一能教会我们的教训就是人类事务的无常和不可预测性:历史不过是一卷由意外和错误构成的篇章。11

These grounds for rejecting theories of history are closely related to another argument which has often been given heavy emphasis: that theory denies not only the ‘uniqueness’ of events but also the dignity of the individual and the power of human agency. Traditional narrative shorn of any explanatory framework gives maximum scope to the play of personality, whereas a concern with recurrent or typical aspects of social structure and social change elevates abstraction at the expense of real living individuals. Worst of all from this viewpoint are theories of the third kind, whose insidious effect is to confer an inevitability on the historical process which individuals are powerless to change, now or in the future; all theories of history, the argument goes, have determinist elements, and determinism is a denial of human freedom.10 The polar opposite of determinism is the rejection of any meaning in history beyond the play of the contingent and the unforeseen – a view held by many historians in the mainstream of the discipline. A.J.P. Taylor delighted in informing his readers that the only lesson taught by the study of the past is the incoherence and unpredictability of human affairs: history is a chapter of accidents and blunders.11

最后,传统主义者对以理论为导向的历史写作的一个主要实际后果感到反感,那就是将历史置于对社会科学的依附关系之中。他们认为,理论型历史学家不发展自己的模型,而是应用社会学、社会人类学和经济学的理论成果——这些学科关注的是现在而非过去,它们对历史的兴趣仅仅在于将其作为检验自身理论的试验场。理论型历史学家正中这些学科的下怀,削弱了历史学科的自主性。历史学家应当警惕来自内部或外部对其职业独特性的威胁。 12

Lastly, the traditionalists recoil from one of the main practical consequences of writing theory-oriented history, which is to place history in a dependent relationship with the social sciences. Theory-minded historians, they maintain, do not develop their own models but apply the theoretical findings of sociology, social anthropology and economics – disciplines whose focus is on the present not the past, and who are interested in history only as a testing ground for their own theories. Theoretical historians simply play into their hands and undermine the autonomy of their own discipline. Historians ought to be vigilant about threats to the distinctiveness of their calling, whether from within or without.12

历史学家的保守主义

The conservatism of historians

传统主义者的观点——有时表达得过于激烈——暗示了历史学界为何如此强烈地排斥理论,那就是其保守主义倾向。 13历史研究吸引了相当数量的保守派人士,他们热衷于援引历史的权威来捍卫那些受到激进改革威胁的制度,或者仅仅是为了逃避周围快速社会变革带来的迷茫感。真正的保守派缺乏……对进步的愿景,不信任将历史意义理论视为乌托邦左派的修辞,并对可能被用来在未来强行推行不良社会工程的社会变革通用模式感到担忧。但历史学家自身的研究方法也对理论起到了强有力的反驳作用。正如M.M. Postan所言,

The views of the traditionalists – sometimes expressed intemperately – suggests one explanation as to why the historical profession has been so strongly averse to theory, and that is its conservatism.13 The study of history has attracted more than its fair share of conservatives concerned to invoke the sanction of the past in defence of institutions threatened by radical reform, or quite simply to find a mental escape from the disorienting impact of rapid social change around them. The true conservative, lacking a vision of progress, distrusts theories of the meaning of history as the rhetoric of the Utopian Left and is alarmed by the notion of a general model of social change which might be employed to push through undesirable projects of social engineering in the future. But the research methods of historians themselves have also acted as a strong antidote to theory. As M.M. Postan put it, the

对细节的批判态度最终成为一种强大的筛选机制。它现在吸引那些性格谨慎细致、未必具备理论综合能力的人投身历史研究。14

critical attitude to minutiae has become in the end a powerful agent of selection. It now attracts to history persons of a cautious and painstaking disposition, not necessarily endowed with any aptitude for theoretical synthesis.14

事实上,对理论的诸多反对意见源于偏见。传统主义者所指出的那些负面倾向固然存在,如果任其发展,确实会导致他们所担忧的种种破坏性后果;但任何对优秀理论史范例的考察都会表明,这些倾向并非不受制约,其结果反而丰富了而非削弱了我们对历史的理解。

In fact a great deal of the opposition to theory is born of prejudice. The negative tendencies that the traditionalists have identified are certainly there and if allowed free rein would lead to the damaging consequences that alarm them so much; but as any examination of the better examples of theoretical history will show, these tendencies do not go unchecked, and the outcome is an enrichment rather than an impoverishment of historical understanding.

乌托邦

Utopian

不切实际的理想主义。这个词源于托马斯·莫尔爵士的著作《乌托邦》,该书设想了一个完美但无法实现的社会。“乌托邦”一词源于希腊语“u-topos”,意为“不存在这样的地方”。

Unrealistically idealistic. The term comes from Sir Thomas More’s book Utopia, which imagines a perfect but unattainable society. ‘Utopia’, derived from the Greek u-topos, means ‘no such place’.

细节

minutiae

非常细微的细节。

Very small details.

概括的必要性

The need to generalize

首先,我们来探讨一下理论会削弱历史事件独特性的观点。事实上,历史学家从未将事件描述得完全独特,因为这根本不可能。历史学家使用的语言本身就对他们的研究材料进行分类,并暗示着超越其直接研究领域的比较。学者之所以能够使用“封建保有权”来描述领主与佃农之间的特定关系,或者使用“革命”来描述重大的政治动荡,唯一的原因是他们与读者对这些词语的含义有着共同的理解,而这种理解基于一个共识:如果我们不始终将具体事例归入一般范畴,世界将变得难以理解。英国上一代社会人类学家的领军人物E.E.埃文斯-普里查德明确地阐述了这一点,他倡导历史学与社会科学之间建立和谐的关系。

Consider, first of all, the contention that theory detracts from the uniqueness of historical events. Historians have in fact never written of events as though they were entirely unique, because it is impossible to do so. The very language that historians employ imposes a classification on their material and implies comparisons beyond their immediate field of interest. The only reason why scholars can use the phrase ‘feudal tenure’ of a particular relationship between lord and tenant, or the word ‘revolution’ of a major political upheaval, is because they share with their readers a common notion of what those words mean, based on a recognition that the world would be incomprehensible if we did not all the time subsume particular instances into general categories. The point was clearly made by E.E. Evans-Pritchard, the leading figure in the last generation of British social anthropologists, who advocated a cordial relationship between history and the social sciences:

如果事件不被视为具有某种程度的规律性和恒常性,不被视为属于某种特定类型的事件(所有此类事件都具有许多共同特征),那么事件就会失去大部分甚至全部意义。约翰国王与他的男爵们之间的斗争只有在特定情况下才具有意义。当人们了解男爵们与亨利一世、斯蒂芬、亨利二世和理查的关系时;当人们了解其他实行封建制度的国家中国王与男爵之间的关系时;换句话说,当这种斗争被视为某种特定类型社会的典型或普遍现象时。15

Events lose much, even all, of their meaning if they are not seen as having some degree of regularity and constancy, as belonging to a certain type of event, all instances of which have many features in common. King John’s struggle with his barons is meaningful only when the relations of the barons to Henry I, Stephen, Henry II, and Richard are also known; and also when the relations between the kings and barons in other countries with feudal institutions are known; in other words, where the struggle is seen as a phenomenon typical of, or common to, societies of a certain kind.15

但是,如果说运用概括性概念能让我们注意到材料中的规律性,那么它也能揭示那些难以归类、赋予事件或情境独特性的方面。理论历史学家认为,如果任何称得上历史分析的要素中都隐含着这些比较,那么将它们明确化——例如,通过构建封建社会或革命变革的模型——将极大地提升思路的清晰度。

But if the use of generalizing concepts alerts us to regularities in the material, it also exposes those aspects that resist categorization and which give the event or situation its unique qualities. The contention of the theoretical historian is that if these comparisons are implicit in any historical analysis worth the name, then there is everything to be gained in clarity of thought by making them explicit – by constructing, for example, a model of feudal society or of revolutionary change.

历史关注的是个人吗?

Is history concerned with individuals?

同样,认为历史理应属于个人范畴的说法,仔细审视之下也显得极具误导性。历史学家总是不得不将人归类到不同的群体中,无论是按国籍、宗教、职业还是阶级划分。这是因为正是这些更广泛的身份认同赋予了他们作为社会人的意义。而这些群体共同之处在于,他们倾向于以某种特定的方式思考和行动,以至于他们的反应是可以预测的。世上没有两个完全相同的人,但他们在某些角色(例如作为食品消费者或特定信仰的信徒)中的行为方式可能遵循着高度规律性的模式。因此,历史学家对群体活动的重视并非否定人类的个性,而仅仅是承认个人与他人共同的行为,在历史上通常比他或她单独做出的任何行为都更具影响力。此外,特定群体为实现其目标而采取的行动的累积效应,会使这种行为制度化——也就是说,使其根深蒂固,从而限制或(用一个恰当的社会学术语来说)限制个人此后的选择但这并不意味着人们的行为是被决定的:某些行为模式可能很明显,但新一代人决心打破固有模式,从而可以拒绝或改变这些模式。没有人比菲利普·艾布拉姆斯更清晰地表达过人类能动性与社会结构之间的张力,他巧妙地融合了历史学家和社会学家的双重身份:

Equally, the claim that history is the rightful province of the individual looks dangerously misleading on closer inspection. Historians are compelled at every turn to classify people into groups, whether by nationality, religion, occupation or class. This is because it is these larger identities that confer significance on them as social beings. And what these groups have in common is a tendency to think and act in certain ways, to the point where their response can be predicted. No two individuals are ever entirely alike, but how they behave in certain roles (e.g. as consumers of foodstuffs or as adherents of a particular creed) may follow a highly regular pattern. The emphasis that historians place on group activity is not, therefore, a denial of human individuality but simply a recognition that what the individual does in common with others usually has far greater impact, historically, than anything else he or she does. Furthermore, the cumulative effect of the actions that a particular group takes in pursuit of its objectives is to institutionalize that behaviour – that is, to entrench it in such a way that the options open to individuals thereafter are constrained or (to use a useful sociological term) structured. This is not the same as saying that people’s actions are determined: certain patterns of behaviour may be strongly indicated, but they can be rejected or modified by the resolve of a new generation to break out of the mould. No one has expressed the tension between human agency and social structuring more lucidly than Philip Abrams, who significantly combined the professions of historian and sociologist:

当我们谈到社会的两面性时,我们指的是随着时间的推移,行动如何演变为制度,而制度又如何反过来被行动所改变。俘虏和贩卖战俘形成了奴隶制。为士兵提供劳役以换取其保护形成了封建制度。基于标准化规则对扩大的劳动力进行组织控制形成了官僚制度。而奴隶制、封建制度和官僚制度则成为人们为繁荣、生存或自由而斗争的固定外部环境。通过以现金支付取代劳役,领主和农民共同开始了瓦解他们祖辈建立的封建秩序的进程。 16

When we refer to the two-sidedness of society we are referring to the ways in which, in time, actions become institutions and institutions are in turn changed by action. Taking and selling prisoners becomes the institution of slavery. Offering one’s services to a soldier in return for his protection becomes feudalism. Organizing the control of an enlarged labour force on the basis of standardized rules becomes bureaucracy. And slavery, feudalism and bureaucracy become the fixed, external settings in which struggles for prosperity or survival or freedom are then pursued. By substituting cash payments for labour services the lord and peasant jointly embark on the dismantling of the feudal order their great-grandparents had constructed.16

最好的理论——我稍后会论证马克思主义就是其中之一——之所以具有吸引力,恰恰在于它们承认并试图阐明行动与结构之间的相互关系。理论并不贬低个体;相反,它力求解释限制人们自由和阻碍其意愿的种种制约因素,并在这一过程中揭示历史的模式。相比之下,那些只关注个体思想和行为的历史学家(外交史学家常常如此)很可能找不到任何规律,而看到的只是一系列混乱的偶然事件和错误。

The best theories – and I will argue shortly that Marxism is one of these – owe their appeal precisely to the fact that they acknowledge and seek to elucidate the reciprocal relationship of action and structure. Theory does not devalue the individual; it seeks rather to explain the constraints that limit people’s freedom and frustrate their intentions, and in doing so it uncovers patterns in history. By contrast, the historian who maintains an exclusive focus on the thoughts and actions of individuals (as diplomatic historians all too often do) is likely to find no shape and to see instead only a chaotic sequence of accident and blunder.

社会科学的教训

Lessons from social science

至于历史学面临被社会科学淹没的威胁,历史学家至少在最初阶段应该借鉴外来理论,这其中自有其道理。社会科学的定义决定了它关注的是群体而非个体的行为;由于其研究范围涵盖整个社会,社会科学家从一开始就需要理论才能开展研究。自18世纪末亚当·斯密以来,经济学家和自19世纪中叶奥古斯特·孔德以来,社会学家都将明确的理论视为解读数据的先决条件,因此,这两个学科,以及近年来社会人类学,都积累了一套精密的理论体系。历史学家运用这些理论,仅仅是承认社会科学在这方面具有先发优势。事实上,历史学一直受到外部理论家的影响,斯密和孔德便是例证。但直到近五十年,历史学家才开始全面衡量社会科学理论的范围和多样性。

As for the threatened submergence of history by the social sciences, there are strong reasons why historians should – in the first instance at least – avail themselves of imported theory. The social sciences are by definition concerned with what people do in aggregates rather than as individuals; and since their range embraces entire societies, social scientists have from the outset needed theory in order to engage with their subject matter at all. Economists since Adam Smith in the late eighteenth century and sociologists since Auguste Comte in the mid-nineteenth century have regarded explicit theory as a prerequisite for interpreting their data, and as a result a body of sophisticated theoretical knowledge has been built up in both disciplines, and latterly in social anthropology too. The use made by historians of these theories is simply an acknowledgement that the social sciences have a head start. In fact history has always been influenced by theorists from without, Smith and Comte being cases in point. But it is only in the past fifty years that historians have begun to take the measure of the full range and versatility of social science theory.

亚当·斯密(1723–90)

Adam Smith (1723–90)

苏格兰经济学家亚当·斯密是十八世纪新古典主义经济学派最重要的代表人物;他于1776年出版的《国富论》被普遍认为是现代经济学的奠基之作。斯密认为,经济受市场力量的“看不见的手”支配,因此,政府监管和干预越少,经济就越繁荣。

Scottish economist. Smith is the most important of the eighteenth-century neo-classical school of economic theory; his 1776 work The Wealth of Nations is generally credited with having invented the modern study of economics. Smith held that economies are governed by a ‘hidden hand’ of market forces and therefore thrive best when government regulation and interference are kept to a minimum.

奥古斯特·孔德(1798–1857)

Auguste Comte (1798–1857)

法国政治哲学家,实证主义学派的创始人。实证主义旨在将不同领域的知识整合为一个连贯的整体。

French political philosopher and founder of the positivist school. Positivism aims to integrate the different branches of knowledge into a coherent whole.

这里存在两个真正的问题。一是许多社会科学理论,尤其是在经济学领域,旨在解释相当狭窄的活动领域,而且往往以一种人为的、脱离实际的方式进行解释。将这些理论应用于历史研究,可能会加剧历史学家在特定分支领域中本就容易陷入的“隧道视野”。一个极端的例子是将统计经济模型应用于经济史研究。这种方法被称为“计量史学”,在20世纪60年代和70年代的美国曾被寄予厚望。计量史学基于这样一种信念:国民经济是一个封闭系统,完全可以用统计模型来解释,而且那些似乎能够解释当前经济变迁的规律也同样适用于过去。这种方法的主要缺陷在于,它预设了人类在追求物质需求的过程中,其动机是“理性”的,即追求利润最大化和降低成本。然而,这往往恰恰是需要论证而非假定的,因为经济活动可能受到非经济因素的影响。当RW Fogel和SL Engerman在《十字架上的时间》(1974)一书中将计量经济学应用于美国南方奴隶制度时,其局限性暴露无遗。 17一个能够解释“理想”条件下人类行为的理论,在面对特定历史情境下存在的社会和文化因素时,往往难以奏效。那些坚持使用此类理论,并声称自己只关注纯粹技术问题的历史学家,实际上患上了一种尤其有害的“隧道视野”。

There are two real problems here. One is that much social science theory, especially in economics, is intended to explain quite restricted fields of activity, often in a somewhat artificially detached way, and the result of applying this theory to historical work may be to intensify the ‘tunnel vision’ to which historians specializing in a particular branch are anyway so prone. An extreme case was the use of statistical economic models in economic history. Known as ‘Cliometrics’, high hopes were expressed for this approach in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Cliometrics was based on the belief that a national economy is a closed system, entirely explicable in terms of statistical models, and that the same laws that appear to explain economic change in the present applied in the past also. The main drawback to this approach was that it started from the premise that human beings in seeking to fulfil their material needs are governed by motives of a ‘rational’ profit-maximizing, cost-cutting kind. Yet often this is exactly what needs to be demonstrated, not assumed, since economic activity may be influenced by non-economic factors. The limitations of Cliometrics were sharply exposed when it was applied to the slave system of the American South in R.W. Fogel and S.L. Engerman’s Time on the Cross (1974).17 A theory that explains human behaviour in ‘ideal’ conditions is unlikely to do so when confronted by the social and cultural factors that obtain in a historically specific situation, and historians who insist on using such a theory on the grounds that they are interested in purely technical problems are afflicted by a particularly disabling form of ‘tunnel vision’.

另一个问题涉及社会科学界对历史的漠视。这种指责并非毫无根据。许多理论,例如自由市场经济理论,都基于均衡的前提,而历史学家认为这是一种极其缺乏历史性的社会观——它否认了所有社会都存在的变革和调整轨迹;另一些理论(例如在美国社会学中盛行的现代化理论)声称包含历史维度,却基于“传统”与“现代”之间天真的对立,这与历史进程的任何意义都背道而驰。诚然,历史学家对社会科学的借鉴大多肤浅且缺乏批判性,他们过于轻易地假定理论是价值中立且客观的,而事实上,社会科学家内部也存在着尖锐的意识形态分歧。 18

The other problem concerns the alleged indifference to history of the social sciences. This charge is not without foundation. Many theories, for example that of the free-market economy, are based on the premise of equilibrium, which strikes historians as a profoundly ahistorical way of conceiving society – a denial of the trajectories of change and adjustment that are present in every case; and other theories (such as the modernization theory so prevalent in American sociology) which purport to embrace a historical dimension are based on a naïve antithesis between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’, which is at odds with any sense of process in history. Certainly much of the borrowing by historians from the social sciences has been shallow and uncritical, and it has too readily assumed that theory is somehow value-free and objective, whereas it is the subject of sharp ideological differences among social scientists themselves.18

非历史性的

ahistorical

违反历史学科的规则,例如脱离语境处理历史事件,甚至在错误的语境中处理历史事件。

In breach of the rules of the historical discipline, e.g. by dealing with historical events out of context, or even in the wrong context.

约翰·利尔伯恩,17世纪40年代英国平等派的政治煽动家和领袖。图中他站在示众台上,向人群发表演讲。(玛丽·埃文斯图片图书馆)

John Lilburne, political agitator and English leader of the Levellers in the 1640s. Here, he appeals to a crowd as he stands at a pillory. (Mary Evans Picture Library)

这两种反对意见都不是回避理论的理由;它们仅仅表明历史学家应该对所吸收的理论有所选择。事实上,对近期历史学家影响尤为广泛的理论,正是那些试图将社会结构或社会变迁作为一个整体来考察的理论,而这些理论中最具影响力的,则源自十九世纪伟大的社会思想家——他们对历史有着深刻的理解——例如马克斯·韦伯,尤其是卡尔·马克思。但对于传统主义者担心被社会科学同化这一担忧,真正的答案在于:这些理论并非天赐的真理,无需刻在历史记录上。它们更应被视为一个出发点。历史研究的结果将是对这些理论进行修正,而且很可能是彻底的修正,并在此基础上建立起真正体现历史学与社会科学交叉融合的理论。双方都将从中受益。

Neither of these objections is a reason for avoiding theory; they suggest only that historians should be discriminating about what they take on board. In fact the theories whose influence on recent historians has been particularly pervasive are those that seek to encompass social structure or social change as a whole, and of these theories the most influential are derived from the great social thinkers of the nineteenth century, who had a profound sense of history – Max Weber and above all Karl Marx. But the real answer to the traditionalists’ fear of absorption by the social sciences is that these theories are not tablets from heaven to be inscribed on the historical record. They should be seen rather as a point of departure. The result of historical work will be to modify them, probably quite drastically, and to erect in their place theories that represent a genuine cross-fertilization between history and social science. Both sides can only benefit from that outcome.

III

反对马克思主义历史的观点

The case against Marxist history

现在,我们可以展开一场讨论,在理论史研究固有的风险与机遇的背景下,评估马克思主义的历史解释。这里的风险并不陌生:马克思的批评者们大肆渲染他思想中一些不太讨喜的倾向,以至于除了少数真正读过马克思本人著作或学术评注的人之外,几乎所有人都将他与悲观的决定论和对人性的彻底犬儒主义联系在一起。按照这种解读,马克思主义的核心信条大致如下:“历史受制于经济力量的不可抗拒的控制,经济力量推动着所有人类社会沿着通往社会主义的道路经历相同的阶段,而资本主义是目前大多数人类所处的阶段。无论人们实际宣称的动机是什么,物质上的利己主义始终是人类行为的主要动力。阶级是这种利己主义的集体表现,因此,一切历史都不过是阶级冲突的历史。”意识形态、艺术和文化仅仅是这种根本认同的反映,它们本身并不具有历史动力。个人是其所处时代和阶级的产物,无论多么才华横溢、多么强大,都无力改变历史进程;是群众创造了历史,但即便如此,他们也只是按照预先设定的模式行事。在马克思逝世后的一百多年里,马克思主义者曾多次接受上述观点,但这些观点都只是对他实际著作的粗略简化。马克思的思想是经过三十多年的研究和思考发展而来的,其理论体系远比“庸俗”马克思主义的口号所能涵盖的要复杂精妙得多。

The way is now open for a discussion in which the Marxist interpretation of history can be assessed in the context of the dangers and opportunities that attend any venture in theoretical history. The dangers in this case are familiar enough: Marx’s detractors have made such play with some of the less attractive tendencies in his thought that, to all except the fairly restricted number of people who have read Marx himself or academic commentaries on his writings, he is associated with a bleak determinism and an utter cynicism about human nature. On this reading, the central tenets of Marxism go something like this. ‘History is subject to the inexorable control of economic forces, which move all human societies along the road to socialism through the same stages, capitalism being the stage currently occupied by most of humankind. At all times material self-interest has been the mainspring of human behaviour, regardless of the motives people have actually professed. Classes represent the collective expression of this self-interest, and all history is therefore nothing more than the history of class conflict. Ideology, art and culture are merely a mirror of this fundamental identification, having no historical dynamic of their own. The individual is the product of his or her own age and class, and however talented and forceful is powerless to affect the course of history; it is the masses who make history, but even they only do so according to a predetermined pattern.’ At one time or another in the hundred years or so that have elapsed since Marx’s death, each of these propositions has been subscribed to by Marxists, but all of them represent a crude simplification of what he actually wrote. Marx’s thought was developed over some thirty years of research and reflection, and the resulting corpus of theory is far more complex and subtle than the shibboleths of ‘vulgar’ Marxism allow.

示播列

shibboleth

(希伯来语)对口号或标语的贬义称呼。

(Hebrew) A derogatory term for a slogan or catchphrase.

马克思主义理论的基础

The basis of Marxist theory

马克思的基本前提是,人与动物的区别在于人能够生产自己的生存资料。为了满足自身的生理和物质需求,人类不断发展出越来越高效的利用环境(或资源)的手段。正如马克思所说,人类征服自然。对于“历史是关于什么的?”这个问题,马克思回答说,历史是关于人类生产力增长的,他期待着所有人的基本需求都能得到充分满足的那一天:只有到那时,人类才能实现自我价值,并在各个领域充分发挥其潜能。马克思坚持认为,历史进程的唯一真实、客观的视角植根于物质生活条件,这使他与19世纪主流史学界截然不同,后者选择民族主义、自由或宗教作为历史的决定性主题。将马克思的观点称为“历史唯物主义”是完全恰当的,这个术语是由他毕生的合作者和思想继承人弗里德里希·恩格斯提出的。从这一基本视角出发,马克思从未动摇过,这一视角最早在《德意志意识形态》 (1846年)中提出。在他余生的大部分时间里,他都致力于研究这一发现对社会结构解释、社会演进阶段和社会变革本质的影响。

Marx began with the fundamental premise that what distinguishes people from animals is their ability to produce their means of subsistence. In the struggle to satisfy their physiological and material needs, men and women have developed progressively more efficient means of exploiting their environment (or mastering nature, as Marx would have put it). To the question ‘What is history about?’ Marx answered that it was about the growth of human productive power, and he looked forward to the time when the basic needs of all people would be amply satisfied: only then would humanity find self-fulfilment and achieve its full potential in every sphere. In maintaining that the only true, objective view of the historical process was rooted in the material conditions of life, Marx sharply distinguished himself from the main currents of nineteenth-century historiography with their choice of nationalism, freedom or religion as the defining themes of history. It is entirely appropriate that Marx’s view should be referred to as ‘historical materialism’, a term coined by his lifelong collaborator and intellectual heir, Friedrich Engels. From this basic perspective, first sketched in The German Ideology (1846), Marx never wavered. For the rest of his life much of his effort was devoted to working out its implications for the interpretation of social structure, the stages of social evolution, and the nature of social change.

马克思对社会的分析

Marx’s analysis of society

马克思认为社会由三个构成层次组成。其基础是生产力(或生产要素):即工具、技术和原材料,以及实现其生产潜力的劳动力。生产力对生产关系(或生产要素)具有一定的意义,马克思所说的生产关系指的是劳动分工以及维持生产所需的合作与服从形式——换言之,就是社会的经济结构。这种结构反过来又构成了上层建筑的基础,上层建筑由法律和政治制度及其支撑的意识形态组成。马克思对社会结构观点的最简洁概括出现在他的《政治经济学批判》(1859年)的序言中:

Marx conceived of society as comprising three constituent levels. Underlying all else are the forces of production (or productive forces): that is, the tools, techniques and raw materials together with the labour power that realizes their productive potential. The forces of production have certain implications for the relations of production (or productive relations), by which Marx meant the division of labour and the forms of cooperation and subordination required to sustain production – in other words the economic structure of society. This structure in turn forms a base or foundation on which is built the superstructure, composed of legal and political institutions and their supporting ideology. The most succinct summary of Marx’s view of social structure appears in the preface to his A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859):

在社会生产过程中,人们不可避免地会进入某种特定的、独立于其意志之外的关系,即与其物质生产力发展阶段相适应的生产关系。所有这些生产关系的总和构成了社会的经济结构,即法律和政治的现实基础。上层建筑与特定的社会意识形式相对应。物质生活的生产方式制约着社会、政治和精神生活的总体进程。不是人的意识决定人的存在,而是人的社会存在决定人的意识。19

In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.19

决定论模型?

A determinist model?

然而,这并非人们通常认为的那种粗糙的决定论模型。首先,生产力绝不仅限于生产资料和工人的体力劳动。技术创造力和科学知识(在马克思的时代,生产力的进一步发展显然依赖于此)也包含在内:它充分考虑了人类的创造力,否则我们将永远受制于周围的自然世界。其次,尽管马克思的观点显然表明,政治和意识形态——历史学家的传统关注点——只能在经济基础的背景下才能被理解,但马克思也承认反向影响的存在。例如,任何经济关系体系都离不开财产权和法律义务的先决框架;也就是说,上层建筑不仅反映了生产关系,而且也具有赋能功能。因此,三层模型允许相互影响。第三,马克思并没有认为所有非经济活动都由经济基础决定。艺术创作是否应该被纳入上层建筑范畴,这一点尚存争议。但即便那些明确属于上层建筑的领域,也并非完全由经济基础决定。正如马克思和恩格斯在其历史著作中所承认的那样,政治制度和宗教都有其自身的运行规律,而且在短期内,经济因素在解释事件发展时可能显得次要;正如布罗代尔所观察到的,马克思本质上是一位长时段理论家(见第164页)。 21

However, this is not the crudely deterministic model that it has so often been taken to be. First, the forces of production are by no means confined to the instruments of production and the brawn of the workers. Technical ingenuity and scientific knowledge (on which the further development of the forces of production so clearly depended by Marx’s day) are also included: full allowance is made for human creativity, without which we would remain slaves of the natural world around us. Second, although it clearly follows from Marx’s view that politics and ideology – the traditional preoccupations of the historian – can only be understood in relation to the economic base, Marx also allowed for influences in the reverse direction. For example, no system of economic relations can become established without a prior framework of property rights and legal obligations; that is to say, the superstructure does not just reflect the relations of production but has an enabling function as well. The three-tier model thus allows for reciprocal influences.20 And third, Marx did not suggest that all non-economic activities were determined by the base. It is arguable whether artistic creation should be included in the superstructure at all. But even those spheres that belong unequivocally to the superstructure are not exclusively determined by the base. Both political institutions and religion have their own dynamic, as Marx and Engels acknowledged in their own historical writings, and in the short term especially economic factors may be of subsidiary importance in accounting for events; as Braudel observes, Marx was essentially a theorist of la longue durée (see p. 164).21

或许更接近马克思思想精神的做法是,将经济结构视为设定限制条件而非决定上层建筑所有具体要素的因素。恩格斯对此观点尤为强调。他在马克思去世几年后写给一位通信者的信中这样说道:

It is probably closer to the spirit of Marx’s thought to see the economic structure as setting limiting conditions rather than determining the elements of the superstructure in all their particularity. Engels was most emphatic on this point. As he wrote to a correspondent some years after Marx’s death:

根据唯物主义历史观,历史的最终决定因素是现实生活的生产和再生产。

According to the materialistic conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life.

马克思和我从未断言过更多。因此,如果有人曲解说经济因素是唯一的决定性因素,他就把这个命题变成了毫无意义、抽象空洞的短语。经济状况是基础,但上层建筑的各种要素……也对历史斗争的进程产生影响,并且在许多情况下,它们在决定历史斗争的形式方面起着主导作用。22

More than this neither Marx nor I has ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure … also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form.22

显然,经济基础/上层建筑的比喻很容易被解释为决定论,马克思的一些言论也可以这样解释,但他的全部著作并没有表明他以如此泾渭分明的视角看待这个问题。

Clearly the base/superstructure metaphor lends itself to a deterministic interpretation, and several of Marx’s utterances can be so interpreted, but his oeuvre as a whole does not suggest that he saw it in such stark terms.

作品

oeuvre

(法语)作者的全部作品。

(French) An author’s complete works.

马克思的历史分析

Marx’s analysis of history

马克思思想中最著名的特征之一是他对历史的分期。他将历史划分为三个时期,直至他所处的时代,每个时期都由一种日益先进的生产方式塑造而成。这三个时期分别是古代社会(古希腊和古罗马)、罗马帝国灭亡后出现的封建社会,以及资本主义(或称“现代资产阶级”)社会。资本主义社会最早于17世纪在英国出现,此后在欧洲其他地区,特别是法国大革命之后,取得了巨大成功。马克思坚信资本主义社会最终必将让位于社会主义社会,并最终实现人类的自我完善,这使得他的分期具有了政治意义;事实上,当他在1846年首次提出这一理论时,他就认为社会主义的到来迫在眉睫。马克思坚持认为,他的分期是历史研究的成果,而非教条式的理论构建,这一点在他根据更深入的研究所做的修正和补充中得到了证实。他后来提出了另一种生产方式,即日耳曼社会,它与古代社会同时期,也是封建社会的根源之一。23马克思驳斥了那些批评者,

One of the best-known features of Marx’s thought is his periodization of history. He distinguished three historical epochs down to his own day, each moulded by a progressively more advanced mode of production. These were Ancient Society (Greece and Rome), Feudal Society, which emerged after the fall of the Roman Empire, and Capitalist (or ‘modern bourgeois’) Society, which had first come into being in England in the seventeenth century and had since triumphed elsewhere in Europe, particularly as a consequence of the French Revolution. What gave political edge to the periodization was Marx’s conviction that Capitalist Society must in due course give way to Socialist Society and the complete self-fulfilment of humankind; indeed when he first sketched the scheme in 1846 he believed the advent of socialism to be imminent. Marx maintained that his periodization was the outcome of his historical enquiries rather than of dogmatic theorizing, and that is borne out by the changes and qualifications he made in the light of fuller research. He later posited an additional mode of production in the form of Germanic Society, contemporaneous with Ancient Society and one of the sources of Feudal Society.23 Marx reproved those critics who

我必须将我对西欧资本主义起源的历史概述,转变为一种历史哲学理论,阐述每个民族无论身处何种历史环境,都注定要走的普遍道路。24

must metamorphose my historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into a historic-philosophic theory of the general path every people is fated to tread, whatever the historical circumstances in which it finds itself.24

简而言之,马克思并没有规定所有人类社会都必须严格遵循的单一进化道路。

In short, Marx did not lay down a single evolutionary path which all human societies are predetermined to follow exactly.

生产中的辩证法是社会变革的动力

Dialectic in production as the motor of social change

这种僵化的时期划分与马克思关于社会变迁的观点格格不入,而社会变迁正是他历史理论中最丰富、最具启发性的部分。马克思在紧随前文引述的1859年序言之后的一段话中总结了他的这一解释:

Such a rigid periodization would have ill consorted with Marx’s view of social change, the richest and most suggestive part of his theory of history. Marx summed up his interpretation in the passage that immediately follows the extract from the 1859 preface quoted earlier:

在发展的某个阶段,社会物质生产力与现有的生产关系,或者——这只是用法律术语表达同样的意思——与它们此前赖以运作的财产关系发生冲突。这些关系从生产力的发展形式变成了生产力的束缚。由此,社会革命时代拉开序幕。经济基础的变革迟早会导致整个庞大上层建筑的转型。25

At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.25

马克思认为,生产力与生产关系之间的矛盾或辩证关系是长期历史变革的主要决定因素:每一种生产方式都蕴含着其后继方式的种子。例如,他特别强调的十七世纪英国革命,其爆发的原因是资本主义生产力发展到一定程度后,受到早期斯图亚特王朝所认可的封建财产关系的制约;革命的结果是生产关系的重塑,为一百年后的工业革命铺平了道路。

Marx believed that the contradiction or dialectic between the forces of production and the relations of production was the principal determinant of long-term historical change: each mode of production contains within it the seeds of its successor. Thus, to take an example on which he held emphatic views, the English Revolution of the seventeenth century occurred because the forces of production characteristic of capitalism had reached the point where their further development was held back by the feudal property relations sanctioned by the early Stuart monarchy; the outcome of the Revolution was a remodelling of the relations of production, which cleared the way for the Industrial Revolution a hundred years later.

阶级冲突

Class conflict

这种较为抽象的历史变迁观念以阶级冲突的形式得以体现。马克思划分阶级并非依据财富、地位或教育——这些在他那个时代常用的标准——而是具体地依据他们在生产过程中的作用。自古代社会以来,每一种生产方式都以劳动分工为特征,这导致了阶级的产生,而这些阶级的真正利益是相互对立的。每一个发展阶段都有其统治阶级,同时也存在着注定要推翻它的阶级。因此,马克思将英国革命归咎于城市资产阶级,他们正在发展……新的资本主义生产力,正如他预期在他所处的时代,由工业资本主义催生的新型工厂无产阶级将实现社会主义一样。正是阶级冲突,即社会内部矛盾的体现,推动着历史向前发展。但这并不意味着群众是历史的创造者。尽管马克思相信人类拥有更美好未来的希望掌握在无产阶级手中,但他的解释将群众在早期历史中的作用局限于辅助地位;他非常清楚,他所生活的世界本质上是资产阶级创造的,马克思既钦佩又憎恶资产阶级所取得的成就。

This rather abstract conception of historical change is made visible in the form of class conflict. Marx identified classes not according to wealth, status or education – the usual criteria employed in his day – but quite specifically in terms of their role in the productive process. The division of labour that has characterized every mode of production since Ancient Society results in the creation of classes whose true interests are mutually antagonistic. Each successive stage has had its dominant class and has also harboured the class destined to overthrow it. Thus Marx ascribed the English Revolution to the urban bourgeoisie, who were developing the new capitalist forces of production, just as he expected socialism to be achieved in his own day by the new factory proletariat spawned by industrial capitalism. It is class conflict expressing the contradictions within society that drives history in a forward direction. This is not to say that the masses are the makers of history. Although Marx believed that humanity’s prospects for a better future lay in the hands of the proletariat, his interpretation confined the masses to an ancillary role in earlier history; he was only too well aware that the world in which he lived was essentially the creation of the bourgeoisie, whom Marx both admired and reviled for what they had achieved.

无产阶级

proletariat

产业工人阶级。这个术语在卡尔·马克思的著作中得到普及后,便被广泛使用。

The industrial working class. The term passed into general use after it was popularized in the writings of Karl Marx.

辅助

ancillary

次要的,从属的。

Secondary, subordinate.

马克思的阶级概念是评估他对人类在历史中能动性观点的关键所在。阶级是根据其与生产资料的关系,从结构层面来定义的,但马克思深知,一个阶级要想在政治上发挥作用,其成员必须具备阶级意识。变革的长期轨迹或许取决于生产力和生产关系之间的辩证关系,但从一个阶段过渡到下一个阶段的时机和具体形式,则取决于真实的人类的意识和行动能力。事实上,马克思毕生致力于使他那个时代的无产阶级了解自身社会中起作用的物质力量,以便他们知道何时以及如何反抗资本主义制度。人是物质力量的受害者,但在合适的条件下,他们有机会成为历史变革的推动者。这一悖论正是马克思历史观的核心。正如他在其当代史杰作《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》(1852年)中所写:

Marx’s conception of class is the point at which his view of the role of human agency in history can be assessed. Class is defined in structural terms according to its relation to the means of production, but Marx knew that for a class to be effective politically requires a consciousness of their class in its members. The long-term trajectory of change may be determined by the dialectic between the forces and relations of production, but the timing and the precise form of the transition from one stage to the next depend on the awareness and capacity for action of real human beings. Indeed, Marx’s entire career was devoted to equipping the proletariat of his time with an understanding of the material forces at work in their own society so that they would know when and how to act against the capitalist system. People are the victims of material forces, but in the right conditions they have the opportunity to be agents of historical change. That paradox lies at the centre of Marx’s view of history. As he wrote in his finest piece of contemporary history, ‘The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’ (1852):

人们创造自己的历史,但他们并非随心所欲地创造历史;他们并非在自己选择的环境下创造历史,而是在直接遭遇、既定和传承自过去的各种环境下创造历史。26

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past.26

马克思如何理解行动与环境之间的相互关系,这一点始终没有明确阐述,但他声称自己揭示了长期的结构性因素,这些因素使得某些历史发展在长期内不可避免。可以说,这些因素界定了个人或群体行动的范围。

How Marx understood the reciprocal relationship of action and circumstances is never made clear, but what he claimed to have done was to reveal the long-term structural factors that render certain historical developments inevitable in the long run. These are, so to speak, the defining limits within which the actions of men and women, whether as individuals or as groups, have their scope.

第四

IV

马克思对历史学家的批判

Marx’s critique of historians

马克思的理论对实际的历史写作有何意义?正如我们所见,这些理论容易被简化成僵化的模式,许多早期马克思主义者正是以这种形式阐述它们的。他们主要关注政治斗争,并满足于一种明确的决定论,即无产阶级革命将在不久的将来爆发。但马克思本人强调,他的理论是研究的指南,而不是研究的替代品。

What were the implications of Marx’s theories for the actual writing of history? As we have seen, these theories lend themselves to a simplified rigid schema, and this was the form in which they were expounded by many of the first Marxists, whose primary interest was in the political struggle and who were content with an unequivocal determinism which pointed towards a proletarian revolution in the near future. But Marx himself was emphatic that his theory was a guide to study, not a substitute for it:

脱离真实的历史来看,这些抽象概念本身毫无价值。它们只能用于方便整理历史材料,指明历史各个层面的顺序。但它们绝非像哲学那样,能够提供一套清晰划分历史时期的方案或模式。恰恰相反,只有当我们着手观察和整理——也就是真实地描绘——历史材料时,无论这些材料是关于过去的还是现在的,我们的困难才会真正出现。27

Viewed apart from real history, these abstractions have in themselves no value whatsoever. They can only serve to facilitate the arrangement of historical material, to indicate the sequence of its separate strata. But they by no means afford a recipe or schema, as does philosophy, for neatly trimming the epochs of history. On the contrary, our difficulties begin only when we set about the observation and the arrangement – the real depiction – of our historical material, whether of a past epoch or of the present.27

马克思所反对的并非历史研究本身,而是当时主流历史学家所采用的研究方法。他认为,他们的错误在于轻信历史人物对其动机和抱负的陈述;如此一来,兰克及其追随者便将自己囚禁于当时的统治意识形态之中,而这种意识形态不过是统治阶级真实物质利益的伪装。“客观”历史——即生产力与生产关系的辩证关系——可以通过研究过去社会的经济结构来实现,而无需参考历史人物的主观言论。与此同时,马克思从未发展出一套清晰的历史研究方法。他自己的历史著作风格多变,从《雾月十八日》(1852)引人入胜的政治叙事,到《资本论》第一卷(1867)抽象的经济分析,不一而足。而且,他对生产力、生产关系以及经济基础与上层建筑之间关系的理解也存在诸多模糊之处。因此,遵循马克思主义传统的历史学家有很多诠释工作要做。

What Marx rejected was not historical study as such but the method employed by the leading historians of his day. Their error, he maintained, lay in taking at face value what the historical actors said about their motives and aspirations; in so doing, Ranke and his imitators imprisoned themselves within the dominant ideology of the age in question, which was merely a cloak for the real material interests of the dominant class. ‘Objective’ history – that is, the dialectic of forces and relations of production – was accessible through research into the economic structure of past societies without reference to the subjective utterances of historical personalities. At the same time, Marx never developed a clear methodology of history. His own historical writings veered from the compelling political narrative of ‘The eighteenth Brumaire’ (1852) to the abstract economic analysis of the first volume of Capital (1867). And there remain ambiguities in his conception of both the forces and the relations of production, as well as the connection between base and superstructure. So historians working within the Marxist tradition have had plenty of interpretative work to do.

首都

Capital

马克思的主要经济分析著作,初版于1867年。该书原计划分为三部分,但最终只出版了第一部分。书中包含了马克思对资本主义从之前的封建和原始经济中发展而来的分析,以及他对资本主义作为一种本质上剥削性的制度,必然会走向崩溃,最终导致社会主义制度建立的论证。

Marx’s major work of economic analysis, first published in 1867. It was originally intended to be a three-part work, but only the first part was ever published in full. It contains Marx’s analysis of the development of capitalism out of the feudal and primitive economies that had preceded it, and his argument that capitalism, as an inherently exploitative system, would inevitably implode, leading to the establishment of a socialist system.

马克思主义的影响

The impact of Marxism

在马克思于1883年逝世后的一代人中,随着他的主要著作被翻译成其他欧洲语言,以及马克思主义倾向的社会主义政党的涌现,历史唯物主义开始对知识界的舆论氛围产生普遍但又略显模糊的影响。马克思主义无疑是促成经济史作为一门独立研究领域兴起的主要思潮之一。正如并非社会主义拥护者的J·H·克拉普汉姆在1929年所承认的那样,“马克思主义,通过其吸引力和排斥力,或许比任何其他理论都更能促使人们思考和研究经济史。” 28但马克思主义解释的内容和方法产生影响的过程则更为漫长。它首先在苏联对专业历史学家的实践产生了显著影响。从布尔什维克夺取政权到1931-1932年斯大林镇压时期,在马克思主义框架下的历史研究和辩论异常活跃。29在俄国,历史研究被严格地置于党的路线之下,这与马克思主义在西方作为一种强大的思想动力兴起的时间点不谋而合。这主要是由于1929年大萧条导致资本主义的明显危机,以及自由民主在法西斯主义面前的明显破产。尽管20世纪30年代英国和其他地区在马克思主义历史研究方面取得了重要的开创性成果,但这些成果大多出自共产党的积极成员之手,他们受到大多数历史学家的怀疑,也鲜少获得学术晋升。然而,自20世纪50年代以来,马克思主义历史研究方法的影响力已大大扩展——而且影响到了许多与共产党毫无关联,甚至在很多情况下根本不参与政治活动的历史学家。许多公认的史学领军人物,例如克里斯托弗·希尔和E·J·霍布斯鲍姆,都曾从马克思主义视角进行研究。

During the generation after Marx’s death in 1883, historical materialism began to have a pervasive though somewhat blurred effect on the climate of intellectual opinion, as his major writings were translated into other European languages and socialist parties of a Marxist persuasion sprang up. Marxism was certainly one of the main currents contributing to the emergence of economic history as a distinct field of enquiry. As J.H. Clapham – no friend of socialism – conceded in 1929, ‘Marxism, by attraction and repulsion, has perhaps done more to make men think about economic history and inquire into it than any other teaching’.28 But the content and method of the Marxist interpretation took longer to make an impact. It first affected the practice of professional historians on a significant scale in the Soviet Union, where, from the Bolshevik takeover until Stalin’s clampdown in 1931–2, historical research and debate within a Marxist framework were very lively.29 The subjection of historical work to a strict party line in Russia coincided with the emergence of Marxism as a powerful intellectual stimulus in the West. This was prompted by the obvious crisis in capitalism as a result of the Great Crash of 1929 and the apparent bankruptcy of liberal democracy in the face of Fascism. But although important pioneer work in Marxist history was done in Britain and elsewhere during the 1930s, it was mostly achieved by active members of the Communist Party, who were viewed with suspicion by most historians and received little academic preferment. Since the 1950s, however, Marxist approaches to history have been much more widely influential – and with historians who have no connection with the Communist Party and in many cases are not politically active at all. Many of the acknowledged leaders of the profession, such as Christopher Hill and E.J. Hobsbawm, have written from a Marxist perspective.

1929年大萧条

Great Crash of 1929

1929年10月24日,纽约证券交易所股价暴跌,终结了20世纪20年代的繁荣,并开启了20世纪30年代的全球经济大萧条。这也被称为华尔街股灾。

The disastrous fall in prices on the New York Stock Exchange on 24 October 1929, which ended the prosperity of the 1920s and ushered in the worldwide economic depression of the 1930s. Also known as the Wall Street Crash.

为什么一种源于对当代社会革命性批判、且极易被教条化的历史解释,却能吸引如此多的学者关注?原因不太可能是马克思主义赋予经济史的核心地位,因为大多数经济史学家(尤其是在英国和美国)并非马克思主义者。马克思主义的吸引力也不能归因于其“弱者视角”的历史观:尽管马克思主义方法非常重视群众在某些方面的作用。它既不提供历史的宏观视角,也不歌颂前几代无产阶级的英雄主义。马克思主义之所以如此具有强大的吸引力,真正的原因在于它很好地满足了历史学家对理论的需求——尤其是在理论最不可或缺的三个领域。

Why is it that a historical interpretation that originated as a revolutionary critique of contemporary society and which is open to dogmatic abuse commands so much attention among scholars? The reason can hardly be any longer the central role accorded by Marxism to economic history, since the majority of economic historians (particularly in Britain and the United States) are non-Marxist. Nor can the appeal of Marxism be attributed to the attractions of an ‘underdog’ view of history: although the Marxist approach gives great weight to the role of the masses at certain historical conjunctures, it does not offer a worm’s-eye view of history, nor is it concerned to celebrate the heroism of earlier generations of proletarians. The real reason for Marxism’s strong appeal is that it answers so well to the historian’s need for theory – and in all three of the areas where theory is least dispensable.

马克思主义社会分析的实用性

The usefulness of Marxist social analysis

通过基础/上层建筑模型,马克思主义提供了一种特别有用的方法来理解任何特定社会中社会关系的整体性。这不仅意味着政治、社会、经济和技术各有其位;在全面的马克思主义分析中,这些熟悉的区分失去了意义。社会史和经济史变得密不可分,政治研究也因此避免沦为对职业政客在其政治舞台上种种伎俩的细致重构——而这种重构很容易被专家们局限于此。年鉴学派所实践的“总体史”的吸引力也在于其反对割裂,但布罗代尔及其追随者显然未能发展出一种令人满意的模式,将政治史与构成其研究支柱的环境和人口研究相结合。至少在这方面,它必须被认为逊于马克思主义历史,后者强调生产力、生产关系和上层建筑之间的相互作用。霍布斯鲍姆是当今最优秀的宏观历史学家之一,他是一位马克思主义者,并且对马克思主义大师的著作有着深刻的理解,这绝非偶然。30

Through the base/superstructure model Marxism offers a particularly useful way of conceiving the totality of social relations in any given society. It is not just that the political, social, economic and technological all have their place; in a full-scale Marxist analysis these familiar distinctions lose their force. Social and economic history become inseparable, and the study of politics is saved from becoming the minute reconstruction of the antics of professional politicians in their own arena, to which it can so easily be restricted by the specialist. The appeal of ‘total history’ as practised by the Annales school also rests on its opposition to compartmentalization, but Braudel and his followers have conspicuously failed to develop a satisfactory model for integrating political history with the environmental and demographic studies that provide the backbone of their work. In this respect at least, it must be counted as inferior to Marxist history with its emphasis on the reciprocal interaction between the productive forces, the relations of production and the superstructure. It is no accident that Hobsbawm, one of the finest writers of the broad historical survey today, is a Marxist with a profound grasp of the master’s own writings.30

正是这种相互作用使马克思主义免于犯下其他理论中常见的脱离历史的错误,即把社会均衡视为常态。马克思主义历史学家认为,所有社会都包含稳定因素和破坏因素(或矛盾),历史变革发生在后者突破现有社会框架,并通过斗争过程建立新秩序之时。历史学家发现,辩证法的概念是分析各种强度社会变革的宝贵工具,从稳定社会结构内部几乎难以​​察觉的变动到革命动荡时期,它都适用。

It is the same reciprocal interaction that saves Marxism from the ahistorical error so common in other theories, of regarding social equilibrium as the norm. Marxist historians hold as a fundamental premise that all societies contain both stabilizing elements and disruptive elements (or contradictions), and that historical change occurs when the latter burst out of the existing social framework and through a process of struggle achieve a new order. Historians have found the notion of the dialectic to be an invaluable tool in analysing social change of varying intensity, from the barely perceptible movement within a stable social formation to periods of revolutionary ferment.

马克思主义内部的分歧:文化主义与经济主义

Divisions within Marxism: culturalism v. economism

然而,对马克思主义理论体系强大影响力的回应,并不意味着遵循马克思主义传统的史学家们就囿于正统教条。过去四十年左右,尤其是在英国,马克思主义史学发展最引人注目之处在于其多样性。随着人们对马克思著作的熟悉程度不断加深,史学家们也开始关注其作品中各种不同甚至相互矛盾的脉络,这体现在近期马克思主义学术研究中出现的一条重要分歧——内部人士称之为“文化主义”和“经济主义”。对英国有史以来最畅销的马克思主义史著作——E·P·汤普森的《英国工人阶级的形成》(见第73页)的反应,最能体现这种分歧。本书的核心主题是,英国劳动阶级如何通过反抗无产阶级化和政治压迫,发展出一种新的意识,并在1830年实现了工人阶级的集体认同和集体政治行动的能力:这种意识并非工厂制度的自动产物,而是在充满活力的本土激进传统的指导下,对经验进行反思的结果。因此,本书是“对一个积极过程的研究,这一过程既依赖于能动性,也依赖于制约”。 31汤普森本人坚持认为,他的著作忠实地体现了马克思的观点,即人们在某种程度上“创造自己的历史”。他的批评者则认为,汤普森低估了马克思对这一论断所作限定的力度。他们指出,汤普森没有详细讨论生产方式的转变,因此未能认识到阶级在经济关系中的根深蒂固,从而夸大了集体能动性的作用。由于汤普森的理论不够严谨,他陷入了主人公的主观体验之中。32汤普森对此毫无悔意;他重申了理论与经验之间需要保持某种平衡,并将马克思主义解读为一种不断发展和灵活的传统,而非一个封闭的体系。 33

Response to the strong pull exerted by Marxism’s theoretical range does not, however, mean that historians practising in the Marxist tradition are confined within an orthodoxy. What is striking about the growth of Marxist historiography during the past forty years or so, especially in Britain, is its diversity. As familiarity with Marx’s writing has spread, so historians have responded to the different and quite contradictory strands in his oeuvre, reflected in a major divide in recent Marxist scholarship between what insiders call ‘culturalism’ and ‘economism’. This divide is best illustrated by reaction to the most widely read work of Marxist history ever written in Britain – E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class (see p. 73). The central theme of the book is how, in reaction to proletarianization and political repression, the English labouring classes developed a new consciousness so that by 1830 they had achieved a collective identity as a working class and the capacity for collective political action: that consciousness was not the automatic by-product of the factory system but was the outcome of reflection on experience in the light of a vigorous native radical tradition. The book is thus ‘a study in an active process, which owes as much to agency as to conditioning’.31 Thompson himself maintained that his book was true to Marx’s recognition that men do, in some measure, ‘make their own history’. His critics argued that Thompson underestimated the force of the qualification added by Marx to that statement. They pointed out that in omitting any detailed discussion of the transition from one mode of production to another, Thompson failed to acknowledge the rootedness of class in economic relations and therefore exaggerated the role of collective agency; because Thompson was lax in his theory, he became trapped within the subjective experience of his protagonists.32 Thompson was unrepentant; he reaffirmed the need to hold theory and experience in some kind of balance and to interpret Marxism as an evolving and flexible tradition rather than a closed system.33

工人阶级与马克思主义理论

The working class and Marxist theory

《英国工人阶级的形成》体现了英国马克思主义史学的另一个显著倾向,那就是它对民众运动史的兴趣,几乎无论其有效性如何,对马克思主义以及其他以目标为导向的历史解读方式的批评之一是,它过度关注那些站在“进步”一方的人物和运动,从而扭曲了我们对过去的理解。但汤普森的关注点与其说是作为未来有组织的工人阶级核心的新兴工厂工人,不如说是工业革命的受害者——例如那些因工厂制度而失去生计的手工织布工。与此同时,如果从这种“弱势群体”的视角出发,就认为马克思主义历史仅仅是“自下而上的历史”,那就大错特错了。阶级斗争最终是在政治层面解决的,而正是通过对国家的控制,新的阶级权力才能得以维系。事实上,尽管这种观点并不流行,但可以说,“自上而下的历史”对于马克思主义历史学家而言同样是一个重要的视角。

The Making of the English Working Class expresses another marked tendency within British Marxist historiography, and that is its interest in the history of popular movements, almost regardless of their efficacy. One of the criticisms that can be made of Marxism, as of other goal-oriented interpretations of history, is that it distorts our understanding of the past by concentrating unduly on those people and movements that were on the side of ‘progress’. But Thompson’s emphasis falls less on the new factory workforce, which was the nucleus of the organized working class of the future, than on the casualties of the Industrial Revolution – people such as the handloom weavers, whose means of livelihood was destroyed by the factory system. At the same time, it would be a mistake to assume from this ‘underdog’ perspective that Marxist history is merely ‘history from below’. Struggles between classes are ultimately resolved at the political level, and it is through control of the state that new dispositions of class power are sustained. In fact it can be argued, though it is not very fashionable to do so, that ‘history from above’ is just as important a perspective for Marxist historians.

手工织布工

handloom weavers

在工厂生产出现之前,那些使用独立织机织布的工人通常在家中进行旧式的“家庭式”纺织生产。手工织布工最终因工厂的竞争而被挤出市场,因此历史学家经常将他们作为十九世纪早期新生产方式影响的标志。

Those who wove cloth on individual looms usually operated within the worker’s home under the old ‘domestic’ system of textile production, which preceded the introduction of factory production. Handloom weavers were eventually forced out of the market by competition from factories, so they are often used by historians as an indication of the impact of the new methods of production in the early nineteenth century.

最后,汤普森生动地展现了英国马克思主义历史学家与其他派别历史学家进行建设性对话的倾向。就汤普森而言,这种对话伴随着激烈的论战,有时甚至掩盖了不同阵营学者之间的共识。马克思主义历史或许最初是一种勉强被容忍的颠覆性思潮,但到了20世纪60年代,它已在大学中站稳脚跟,其实践者也完全融入了历史学界——霍布斯鲍姆的自传《有趣的时代》(2002)对此有充分的阐述。

Finally, Thompson is a striking illustration of the tendency among British Marxist historians to engage in constructive dialogue with historians of other persuasions. In Thompson’s case the dialogue was pursued with vehement polemic, which sometimes belied the convergence between scholars from different camps. Marxist history may have begun as a barely tolerated subversion, but by the 1960s it was securely established in the universities and its practitioners were fully integrated in the historical profession – as is made abundantly clear by Hobsbawm’s autobiography, Interesting Times (2002).

V

V

马克思主义与共产主义的垮台

Marxism and the fall of communism

我对马克思主义历史理论的详尽论述,在某些读者看来,或许是一种自我放纵地向过时的激进主义屈服。自1989年以来,随着世界马克思主义政权的衰落和国际共产主义的崩溃,马克思主义难道不是已被弃置一旁了吗?马克思主义历史学家难道不是被困在了时间的漩涡中吗?与其他学者一样,如果历史学家不受其所处政治环境的影响,那他们就不是人了。如今马克思主义学者的工作环境远不如四十年前有利。仅凭这一点,就足以说明接受“马克思主义史学”标签的历史学家寥寥无几。马克思主义史学的大部分辉煌成就都诞生于20世纪60年代至80年代——英国的汤普森、霍布斯鲍姆和希尔,以及包括法国的乔治·勒费弗尔和美国的尤金·杰诺维斯在内的众多外国学者都做出了卓越贡献。马克思主义史学在未来不太可能再享有如此高的关注度。

The extended treatment I have given to the Marxist theory of history may seem to some readers like a self-indulgent surrender to an outmoded radicalism. Has not Marxism now been placed on the scrap-heap with the reduction of the world’s Marxist governments to a tiny rump and the collapse of international communism since 1989? Are not Marxist historians now trapped in a time-warp? Like other scholars, historians would not be human if they were unaffected by the political atmosphere in which they work. The circumstances in which a Marxist scholar can work today are far less propitious than they were forty years ago. For that reason alone, there are many fewer historians who accept the label. Most of the towering achievements of Marxist history were made between the 1960s and 1980s – by Thompson, Hobsbawm and Hill in Britain, as well as a galaxy of foreign scholars which included Georges Lefebvre in France and Eugene Genovese in the United States. Marxist history is unlikely to enjoy such a high profile in the future.

1989年11月柏林墙倒塌后,东欧各地爆发了民众起义,推翻了共产主义政权。一些人认为马克思主义本身已经失去了信誉;在东德德累斯顿的马克思和恩格斯雕像上,涂鸦写着“我们无罪”,许多人也持有这种观点,认为苏联独裁政权是对马克思主义的歪曲。然而,并非所有人都认同这种观点,许多马克思和恩格斯的雕像,如同列宁的雕像一样,被推倒砸碎。(Alamy/ICP)

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, popular insurrection overturned communist governments across Eastern Europe. Some held that Marxism itself had been discredited; graffiti on this statue of Marx and Engels in Dresden, in East Germany, has them declaring ‘We are not guilty’, a view shared by many who saw the Soviet dictatorship as a perversion of Marxism. Not everyone agreed, however, and many statues of Marx and Engels, like those of Lenin, were overturned and smashed. (Alamy/ICP)

但只要历史学家认识到需要一种既能探讨社会结构又能探讨社会变迁的理论取向,马克思主义就仍然具有现实意义。他们或许并非严格意义上的马克思主义者,并非在马克思的思想体系内进行研究,但他们会借鉴马克思主义传统中的概念和范畴。中世纪英国史就是一个典型的例子。认为领主与农民之间的关系是一种阶级冲突,而这种冲突是中世纪社会变迁的主要驱动力,这显然是一种马克思主义立场。这种观点与罗德尼·希尔顿密切相关,他是共产党历史学家小组的杰出成员。然而,正如一次纪念希尔顿著作的会议所表明的那样,这种解释仍然存在很大争议。正如克里斯·威克姆所言,“远非马克思主义”。思想即便已死或奄奄一息,却无处不在。但它们已被常态化。 34 现代史亦是如此。杰出的政治史学家彼得·克拉克自称是“优柔寡断的剑桥自由主义者”,但他承认“作为历史的马克思主义(而非预测)仍然可以为我们提供洞见”。 35马克思主义历史在高度分层的第三世界社会中发挥了重要作用。例如,在南非,它至关重要地揭示了种族隔离和种族隔离制度——通常被视为非理性的反常现象——实际上如何通过保障白人经济的廉价劳动力供应来服务于资本主义的利益。 36马克思主义绝不能被当作博物馆里的展品而弃之不用。

But for as long as historians recognize the need for a theoretical orientation which addresses both social structure and social change, Marxism will be relevant. They may not be Marxists in the sense of working within Marx’s system of thought, but they will draw on the concepts and categories of the Marxist tradition. Medieval English history is a case in point. To argue that the relation between lords and peasants was one of class conflict, and that this tension was the main driver of social change in the Middle Ages, is clearly a Marxist position. It was closely associated with Rodney Hilton, a prominent member of the Communist Party Historians’ Group. Yet this interpretation remains very much in contention, as a commemorative conference on Hilton’s work established. As Chris Wickham remarks, ‘far from Marxist ideas being dead or moribund, they are everywhere. But they have been normalized’.34 The same can be said of modern history. Peter Clarke, a distinguished political historian who admits to being a ‘wishy-washy Cambridge liberal’, concedes that ‘Marxism as history [as distinct from prediction] can still be made to yield insights for us’.35 Marxist history has come into its own in the highly stratified societies of the Third World. In South Africa, for example, it was critical in showing how segregation and apartheid – often dismissed as an irrational aberration – in fact served the interests of capitalism by guaranteeing a supply of cheap labour to the white economy.36 Marxism can certainly not be written off as a museum-piece.

有人可能会对在论述历史学家和社会理论的章节中优先考虑马克思主义的做法提出异议。马克思主义当然不是当时唯一的理论体系,它的衰落难道不正是其他理论体系更具吸引力的明证吗?诚然,即使在马克思主义的鼎盛时期,它也面临着竞争,尤其是在美国,自由主义现代化理论被广泛用于解释从传统社会向现代工业社会的过渡,其革命性动荡远小于马克思主义所允许的程度,且影响更为良性。37近年来,女权主义者发展出了性别理论,以性别差异、公私领域的划分以及父权制权力等相对新颖的视角来解释社会结构(参见第十章)。此外,当历史学家呼吁人们接受理论时——他们也越来越频繁地这样做——他们通常指的并非社会理论,而是探讨意义和表征问题的文化理论(参见第九章)。这一最新趋势暴露了马克思主义的一个主要缺陷,即它倾向于将文化视为次要因素:民族和宗教在马克思主义史学中都未得到应有的重视。在20世纪90年代,将文化视为社会独立维度的理论引起了人们的极大兴趣,相比之下,马克思主义显得陈旧过时。社会史学和文化史学之间的冲突在学术期刊上(尤其是1992年至1996年间的《社会史》期刊)上演,马克思主义普遍被认为处于劣势。

Objection might also be made to the priority accorded to Marxism in a chapter on historians and social theory. Marxism was surely not the only theoretical game in town, and is not its decline testimony to the superior attractions of other bodies of theory? It is true that even in it heyday Marxism faced competition, particularly in the United States where liberal modernization theory was much used as a means of accounting for the transition from traditional to modern industrial society with much less revolutionary upheaval and more benign effects than are allowed within Marxism.37 More recently, feminists have developed theories of gender that explain social structure in comparatively novel terms of sexual difference, the divide between public and private spheres, and patriarchal power (see Chapter 10). On top of that, when historians issue calls to embrace theory – as they increasingly do – what they usually have in mind is not social theory, but cultural theories which tackle questions of meaning and representation (see Chapter 9). This most recent trend exposes one of the principal weaknesses of Marxism, namely its tendency to see culture as secondary: neither nationality nor religion receive their due from Marxist historiography. During the 1990s theories that treat culture as an autonomous dimension of society had all the excitement of novelty, against which Marxism inevitably seemed staid and dated. The conflict between social and cultural approaches was played out in the journals (notably Social History between 1992 and 1996), and Marxism was generally reckoned to have lost out.

然而,正如本章所论证的,马克思主义理论在历史解释体系中占有独特的地位。没有任何其他理论能够提供如此全面的社会结构模型。或者说,这是一种充满活力的社会政治变革理论。马克思主义作为一种鲜活的理论传统,延续了150多年,这不仅部分归功于其作为政治武器的起源,也得益于历史学家和社会理论家们对其持续发展潜力的认可。然而,已有迹象表明,这股文化潮流或许正在退却。随着文化潮流的退却,植根于人类生活物质现实、重视生产关系的核心地位、并强调集体行动与社会决定论之间张力的理论方法,其价值将再次得到认可。

Yet, as this chapter has demonstrated, Marxist theory has had a unique place in the explanatory resources of history. No other theory offers such a comprehensive model of social structure, or such a dynamic theory of social and political change. That Marxism has been a living theoretical tradition for more than 150 years is only partly due to its origins as a political weapon. It is also because historians and social theorists have recognized its capacity for continuing development. There are already signs that the cultural tide may be retreating. As it does, the merits of a theoretical approach that is rooted in the material realities of human life, which recognizes the centrality of productive relations, and which highlights the tension between collective agency and social determination, will once more be recognized.

社会理论与历史的“重大问题”

Social theory and the ‘big questions’ of history

正如我们所见,学术界对理论的价值存在分歧。但所有历史学家,除非是顽固的传统主义者,都承认理论在激发各种假设方面卓有成效。他们认为,理论的价值不在于其解释力,而在于其提出有趣问题并引导学者关注新的史料的能力——简而言之,它作为一种启发式工具具有价值。历史研究通常会表明,当面对丰富的实际经验时,既定的理论并不成立,但在此过程中,一个新的历史研究领域可能会被开辟出来。从这个角度来看,马克思主义理论作为“富有启发性的谬误”来源,有着非常良好的记录:38无论它存在哪些缺陷,它都产生了大量关于政治进程与社会经济结构之间联系的历史知识。同样,也可以说,比较史的写作尝试与其说是揭示共同模式,不如说是增强了我们对所讨论时期或地区之间根本差异的认识。

As we have seen, academic opinion is divided about the merits of theory. But all historians, unless they are diehard traditionalists, concede that theory has been very productive of stimulating hypotheses. Its value, they claim, lies not in its explanatory power but in its capacity to raise interesting questions and to alert scholars to fresh source material – in a word, it has merit as a heuristic device. Historical research usually demonstrates that a given theory does not hold when confronted by the richness of actual experience, but in the process a new area of historical enquiry may be opened up. From this angle Marxist theory has a very good track record as a source of ‘fertile error’:38 whatever its failings it has generated a great deal of historical knowledge about the connections between political process and the socio-economic structure. Equally it might be argued that the attempt to write comparative history has proved its worth less in revealing common patterns than in sharpening our awareness of the fundamental differences between the periods or places under discussion.

启发式

heuristic

从发现和实验中学习。

Learning from discovery and experiment.

这或许可以称之为历史学家运用理论的极简主义辩护。它忽略了历史知识远不止于过去的具体情境和过程。历史学家们由于其对原始研究的专业投入,很容易忘记历史诠释中存在着亟待解决的大规模问题:例如,如何解释工业化或官僚机构发展等长期进程,以及封建制度或种植园奴隶制等制度在不同社会中的反复出现。研究范围越广,就越需要理论,而这种理论不应仅仅是提醒历史学家注意新的证据。但它实际上试图解释所讨论的过程或模式。马克思主义史学即便没有其他贡献,至少也使一些历史的“重大问题”更加突出地成为学术界关注的焦点,并有助于审视那些常常影响历史学家(他们最强烈地反对理论)工作的无意识模式。

This might be termed the minimalist justification of the use of theory by historians. What it overlooks is that historical knowledge consists of more than specific conjunctures and processes in the past. Historians with their professional commitment to primary research all too easily forget that there are large-scale problems of historical interpretation which cry out for treatment: how to explain long-term processes such as the growth of industrialization or bureaucracy, and the recurrence of institutions such as feudalism or plantation slavery in widely separated societies. The broader the scope of the enquiry, the greater the need for theory that does not simply alert the historian to fresh evidence, but which actually attempts to explain the process or pattern in question. Marxist historiography, if it has done nothing else, has at least brought some of the ‘big questions’ of history more insistently to the centre of the scholarly arena, and has served to expose to scrutiny the unconscious models that so often inform the work of historians most vehement in their rejection of theory.

历史学家有意识地将社会理论应用于这些宏观问题,导致了大量二流学者为了证明自己的理论功力而进行的还原论历史研究。然而,在最优秀的历史学家手中——而这项工作的成败无疑应由他们的努力来评判——对历史背景的把握和对史料的驾驭确保了理论与证据之间恰当的联系。正如汤普森所言,历史理解的进步是通过“综合模式与经验模式之间微妙的平衡,以及模型与现实之间的博弈”来实现的。39可以预见,社会理论在接受这种检验后会显得不足,但这并非放弃使用它们的理由。历史学家的职责在于运用理论,完善理论,并发展新的理论,而这一切都应始终以最广泛意义上的证据为依据。他们这样做并不是为了追求能够“解决”这个或那个解释问题的终极理论或“定律”,而是因为如果没有理论,他们就无法掌握历史上真正重要的问题。

The conscious application of social theory by historians to these broad questions has given rise to a great deal of reductionist history by second-rate scholars anxious to prove their theoretical credentials. But in the hands of the best historians – and it is by their efforts that the enterprise should surely be judged – the awareness of context and the command of the sources ensure a proper relationship between theory and evidence. As Thompson put it, historical understanding advances by means of ‘a delicate equilibrium between the synthesising and the empiric modes, a quarrel between the model and the actuality’.39 It is to be expected that, submitted to this discipline, social theories should be tried and found wanting, but that is no reason for renouncing their use. The business of historians is to apply theory, to refine it, and to develop new theory, always in the light of the evidence most broadly conceived. And they do so not in pursuit of the ultimate theory or ‘law’ which will ‘solve’ this or that problem of explanation, but because without theory they cannot come to grips with the really significant questions in history.

还原论

reductionism

预先选定一个现实层面作为根本,并以此层面来解释其他一切事物。

The prior selection of one level of reality as fundamental, and the interpretation of everything else in terms of that one level.

理论家与“英国革命”

Theorists and the ‘English Civil War’

马克思主义历史学对1642-1649年英国内战史的研究做出了尤为重要的贡献。英国历史学家克里斯托弗·希尔在其著作《世界颠倒》中,突破了以往侧重于议会与王室之间宪政争论的正统分析,转而关注这一时期涌现的激进政治和宗教团体,例如平等派和杰拉德·温斯坦利的掘地派。希尔并非仅仅提出了一种“自下而上的历史观”,而是将这一时期呈现为一个宪政和宗教争论本质上只是阶级间更根本冲突的渠道的时期。其他历史学家则通过强调冲突根源在于实际的宗教信仰,而非将宗教视为一种工具,来回应马克思主义分析中根深蒂固的世俗视角。对于非宗教性的阶级控制问题,苏格兰、威尔士和北爱尔兰民族主义运动的兴起,促使人们从英国的角度重新审视这一时期。在新的视角下,王室与议会之间的冲突被视为爱尔兰、苏格兰以及英格兰更广泛的宗教和宪政问题相互作用的一部分。过去人们通常将这一时期简单地称为“英国内战”,而现在,根据发言者的立场,人们更常称之为“英国革命”或“英国内战”。

Marxist history has made a particularly important contribution to the historiography of the English Civil Wars of 1642–9. In his book The World Turned Upside Down, the British historian Christopher Hill broke with orthodox analysis, which had concentrated on the constitutional arguments between Parliament and the Crown, to look at the explosion of radical political and religious groups the period also witnessed, such as the Levellers and Gerrard Winstanley’s Diggers. Hill was not merely putting forward a version of ‘history from below’; he was presenting the period as one in which constitutional and religious arguments were essentially conduits for a more fundamental conflict between classes. Other historians have responded to the relentlessly secular terms of Marxist analysis by stressing the roots of the conflict in actual religious belief, rather than viewing religion as a vehicle for non-religious issues of class control. The growth of nationalist movements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has led to a separate reappraisal of the period in British terms, in which the conflict between Crown and Parliament is seen as part of a much broader interplay of religious and constitutional issues in Ireland and Scotland, as well as England. Where the period used to be referred to simply as ‘the English Civil War’, it is now common to hear reference made, according to the standpoint of the speaker, to ‘the English Revolution’ or ‘the British Civil Wars’.

E·P·汤普森与英国工人阶级的形成

E.P. Thompson and The Making of the English Working Class

E·P·汤普森1963年出版的《英国工人阶级的形成》一书,因其将普通民众的经历置于历史的核心位置而广受读者欢迎。这是首次系统地尝试为整个工人阶级(而非工会或合作运动)构建一种历史传承和集体认同感。汤普森的著作至今仍广受欢迎,尤其是在左翼人士中,但其清晰的文风和充满人文关怀的论断也赢得了不同政治立场人士的赞赏。汤普森本人后来成为核裁军运动的领军人物。

E.P. Thompson’s 1963 The Making of the English Working Class won a wide popular readership for the way it brought the experiences of ordinary people to the historical forefront. It was the first systematic attempt to provide the working class as a whole, as opposed to the trade unions or the co-operative movement, with a heritage and a sense of collective identity. Thompson’s book remains popular, particularly among those on the political Left, though it is admired across the political divide for the clarity of its style and for the humanity of its judgements. Thompson himself went on to become a leading figure in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

卡尔·马克思和弗里德里希·恩格斯

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

弗里德里希·恩格斯(1820—1895)是一位富裕的德国棉纺织厂主的儿子。他作为父亲的代理人在当时的欧洲棉纺织中心曼彻斯特工作,因此得以深入了解英国经济的运作,并近距离观察工人阶级的生活。他在1844年出版的揭露性著作《英国工人阶级状况》中对此进行了描述。同年,他结识了马克思,两人于1848年共同发表了《共产党宣言》,阐述了共产主义的基本理论,并号召全世界的工人联合起来,摆脱压迫。1848—1849年欧洲革命失败后,马克思前往英国与恩格斯会合,并在大英博物馆阅览室开始了浩大的调研工作。这项工作最终促成了他在1867年出版的对资本主义制度进行详细批判的著作《资本》。马克思在第一国际中发挥了领导作用,第一国际是一个国际性的工人组织。他曾希望马克思的著作能够引发无产阶级革命,建立共产主义秩序,但他未能阻止马克思主义分裂为马克思主义和无政府主义两大派别。马克思于1883年贫困潦倒地去世,葬于伦敦海格特公墓,至今他的墓地仍是社会主义者和共产主义者的朝圣之地。恩格斯将余生致力于翻译和编辑马克思的著作,以使更多人能够阅读到这些著作。

Friedrich Engels (1820–95) was the son of a prosperous German cotton manufacturer. He acted as his father’s agent in Manchester, then the centre of European cotton manufacture, and was thus able to gain a detailed understanding of the workings of the British economy and to observe at close hand the lives of the working classes, which he described in his 1844 exposé, The Condition of the Working Classes in England. He met Marx the same year, and the two men produced The Communist Manifesto in 1848, laying out the basic theory of communism and calling on working men of all lands to unite to free themselves from oppression. After the failure of the European revolutions of 1848–9, Marx joined Engels in England and began the mammoth task of research in the British Museum Reading Room, which was to result in 1867 in his detailed critique of the capitalist system Das Kapital (Capital). Marx took a leading role in the First International, an international workers’ association which, he hoped, would precipitate proletarian revolution and establish the communist order, but he was unable to prevent it from splitting into Marxist and anarchist factions. Marx died in poverty in 1883 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery in London, where his tomb is still a place of pilgrimage for socialists and communists. Engels devoted the rest of his life to translating and editing Marx’s works in order to bring them to a wider readership.

《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》

‘The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’

路易·拿破仑·波拿巴(1808-1873)是拿破仑一世的弟弟路易的第三个儿子。1832年,拿破仑一世的儿子赖希施塔特公爵去世后,他继承了波拿巴王朝的王位。拿破仑一世于1799年11月9日(当时革命历法中的雾月18日)发动军事政变夺取政权。路易·拿破仑试图效仿父亲,分别于1836年和1840年发动两次未遂政变,第二次政变后被判处终身监禁。他逃往英国,但在1848年法国大革命建立共和国后返回法国。他作为巴黎工人阶级的代表当选为新成立的制宪议会议员,并在1848年12月的总统选举中以绝对优势获胜。然而,他很快与当选的制宪议会发生冲突,并采取了日益专制的措施。 1851年12月2日,他派兵解散议会,宣布宪法废除,并下令进行大规模逮捕。一年后,他宣布建立第二帝国,自立为皇帝,称拿破仑三世(“拿破仑二世”原为赖希施塔特公爵)。马克思在其讽刺性文章《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》中抓住了工人阶级愿望的这种背叛,并提出了著名的格言:历史重演,“第一次是悲剧,第二次是闹剧”。拿破仑三世后来的经历印证了马克思的犬儒学说:在经历了一系列外交和军事失败后,他在1870-1871年与普鲁士的灾难性战争后被推翻,最终在英国以政治难民和寻求庇护者的身份度过了余生。

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (1808–73) was the third son of Napoleon I’s brother Louis. He became head of the Bonaparte dynasty in 1832 on the death of Napoleon I’s son, the Duke of Reichstadt. Napoleon I had come to power by means of a military coup staged on 9 November 1799, or 18th Brumaire Year X in the revolutionary calendar then in use. Louis Napoleon sought to emulate him in two abortive coup attempts in 1836 and 1840, after the second of which he was imprisoned for life. He escaped to England but returned to France after the Revolution of 1848 established a republic. He was elected to the new constituent assembly as a representative of the Parisian working class, and won the presidential elections of December 1848 with a huge majority. However, he soon fell into conflict with the elected assembly and resorted to ever more autocratic measures. On 2 December 1851 he sent troops to close the assembly, declared the constitution dissolved and ordered widespread arrests. A year later he declared a Second Empire with himself as the Emperor Napoleon III (‘Napoleon II’ having been the Duke of Reichstadt). Marx seized on this betrayal of working-class aspirations in his sardonic essay ‘The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’, in which he coined the famous aphorism that when history repeats itself it does so ‘the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce’. Napoleon III’s subsequent career bore out Marx’s cynicism: after a string of diplomatic and military failures he was overthrown after the disastrous war with Prussia of 1870–1 and ended his days as a political refugee and asylum seeker in England.

延伸阅读

Further reading

Mary Fulbrook《历史理论》,Routledge出版社,2002年。

Mary Fulbrook, Historical Theory, Routledge, 2002.

Peter Burke《历史与社会理论》,Polity出版社,1995年。

Peter Burke, History and Social Theory, Polity Press, 1995.

LS Feuer(编),《卡尔·马克思和弗里德里希·恩格斯:政治和哲学基本著作》,丰塔纳出版社,1969年。

L.S. Feuer (ed.), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, Fontana, 1969.

马特·佩里《马克思主义与历史》,帕尔格雷夫出版社,2002年。

Matt Perry, Marxism and History, Palgrave, 2002.

埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆《论历史》,Abacus出版社,1997年。

Eric Hobsbawm, On History, Abacus, 1997.

EP Thompson《理论的贫困》,Merlin出版社,1978年。

E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory, Merlin Press, 1978.

Harvey J. Kaye《英国马克思主义历史学家》,Polity出版社,1984年。

Harvey J. Kaye, The British Marxist Historians, Polity Press, 1984.

SH Rigby《马克思主义与历史:批判性导论》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,1987 年。

S.H. Rigby, Marxism and History: A Critical Introduction, Manchester University Press, 1987.

笔记

Notes

  1  参见 Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie,《历史学家的思想和方法》,Harvester 出版社,1981 年,第 1 章

  1  See Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Mind and the Method of the Historian, Harvester, 1981, ch. 1.

  2  显然,这种理论是 GR Elton 的许多作品的基础,也是上文讨论的“高层政治”史学派的基础(第 65-66 页)。

  2  Some such theory evidently underlies much of G.R. Elton’s work, and also the ‘high politics’ school of historiography, discussed above, pp. 65–6.

  3  一个主要的例外是 EH Carr 的《什么是历史?》(企鹅出版社,1961 年)。

  3  A major exception is E.H. Carr, What is History? Penguin, 1961.

  4   Peter Mathias,《与邻居相处:经济史的作用》,1970 年,转载于 NB Harte(编),《经济史研究》,Cass 出版社,1971 年,第 380 页。

  4  Peter Mathias, ‘Living with the neighbours: the role of economic history’, 1970, reprinted in N.B. Harte (ed.), The Study of Economic History, Cass, 1971, p. 380.

  5  关于这种观点,请参阅 Jacques Barzun 的《克利奥和医生们》,芝加哥大学出版社,1974 年。

  5  For this view, see Jacques Barzun, Clio and the Doctors, Chicago University Press, 1974.

  6   Aileen S. Kraditor,“美国激进历史学家论他们的遗产”, 《过去与现在》 ,第56卷,1972年,第137页。

  6  Aileen S. Kraditor, ‘American radical historians on their heritage’, Past and Present, LVI, 1972, p. 137.

  7  同上,第 137 页。

  7  Ibid., p. 137.

  8   Paul K. Conkin,“思想史”,载于 Charles F. Delzell(编),《历史的未来》,范德比尔特大学出版社,1977 年,第 129-130 页。

  8  Paul K. Conkin, ‘Intellectual history’, in Charles F. Delzell (ed.), The Future of History, Vanderbilt University Press, 1977, pp. 129–30.

  9  大卫·汤姆森,《历史的目的》,泰晤士与哈德逊出版社,1969 年,第 105 页。

  9  David Thomson, The Aims of History, Thames & Hudson, 1969, p. 105.

10  以赛亚·伯林,《历史的必然性》,1954 年,转载于帕特里克·加德纳(编),《历史哲学》,牛津大学出版社,1974 年。

10  Isaiah Berlin, ‘Historical inevitability’, 1954, reprinted in Patrick Gardiner (ed.), The Philosophy of History, Oxford University Press, 1974.

11  类似这样的评论在 AJP Taylor 的《俾斯麦》(Hamish Hamilton 出版社,1955 年)和《第二次世界大战的起源》(企鹅出版社,1964 年)中反复出现。

11  Comments in this vein recur in A.J.P. Taylor’s Bismarck, Hamish Hamilton, 1955, and in his The Origins of the Second World War, Penguin, 1964.

12   GR Elton,《历史的实践》,Fontana出版社,1969年,第55-56页。

12  G.R. Elton, The Practice of History, Fontana, 1969, pp. 55–6.

13   GR Elton,《回归本质》(剑桥大学出版社,1991 年),第 13-15 页、第 27 页;Arthur Marwick,“‘对文献的迷恋?’基于史料的历史的重要性”,载 Henry Kozicki(编),《现代史学的发展》 ,麦克米伦出版社,1993 年,第 110-111 页。

13  G.R. Elton, Return to Essentials (Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 13–15, 27; Arthur Marwick, ‘“A fetishism of documents?” The salience of source-based history’, in Henry Kozicki (ed.), Developments in Modern Historiography, Macmillan, 1993, pp. 110–11.

14   MM Postan,《事实与关联》,剑桥大学出版社,1971 年,第 16 页。

14  M.M. Postan, Fact and Relevance, Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 16.

15   EE Evans-Pritchard,《人类学与历史》,1961 年,重印于他的《社会人类学论文集》,Faber 出版社,1962 年,第 49 页。

15  E.E. Evans-Pritchard, ‘Anthropology and history’, 1961, reprinted in his Essays in Social Anthropology, Faber, 1962, p. 49.

16   Philip Abrams,《历史社会学》,开放书籍出版社,1982 年,第 2-3 页。

16  Philip Abrams, Historical Sociology, Open Books, 1982, pp. 2–3.

17  有关对《十字架上的时间》的批判性回应,请参阅保罗·戴维等人的《清算奴隶制》,牛津大学出版社,1976 年。

17  For critical responses to Time on the Cross, see Paul David et al., Reckoning with Slavery, Oxford University Press, 1976.

18  参见 Gareth Stedman Jones 的评论,《从历史社会学到理论历史》,《英国社会学杂志》第 27卷,1976 年,第 295-305 页;以及 Tony Judt 的评论,《身着皇家紫色的丑角:社会史与历史学家》,《历史工作坊杂志》 ,第 7 卷,1979 年,第 66-94 页。

18  See the criticism of Gareth Stedman Jones, ‘From historical sociology to theoretical history’, British Journal of Sociology, XXVII, 1976, pp. 295–305, and Tony Judt, ‘A clown in regal purple: social history and the historians’, History Workshop Journal, VII, 1979, pp. 66–94.

19  卡尔·马克思,《政治经济学批判》,劳伦斯和威沙特出版社,1971年,第20-21页。

19  Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Lawrence & Wishart, 1971, pp. 20–1.

20梅尔文·雷德在其著作《马克思的历史解释》 (牛津大学出版社,1979 年)  中对此解释进行了令人信服的论证。关于相反的观点,请参阅 GA 科恩的著作《卡尔·马克思的历史理论:辩护》(牛津大学出版社,1978 年)。

20  This interpretation is convincingly argued in Melvin Rader, Marx’s Interpretation of History, Oxford University Press, 1979. For a contrary view, see G.A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence, Oxford University Press, 1978.

21  费尔南·布罗代尔,《历史与社会科学:长时段》,1958 年,重印于他的《论历史》,魏登菲尔德和尼科尔森出版社,1980 年,第 51 页。

21  Fernand Braudel, ‘History and the social sciences: la longue durée’, 1958, reprinted in his On History, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980, p. 51.

22  恩格斯致 J. 布洛赫,1980 年 9 月 21 日,转载于卡尔·马克思和弗里德里希·恩格斯,《政治与哲学基本著作》,LS Feuer 编辑,Fontana 出版社,1969 年,第 436-437 页。

22  Engels to J. Bloch, 21 September 1980, reprinted in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, ed. L.S. Feuer, Fontana, 1969, pp. 436–7.

23  卡尔·马克思,《前资本主义经济形态》,劳伦斯和威沙特出版社,1964 年,特别是 EJ 霍布斯鲍姆的导言。

23  Karl Marx, Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, Lawrence & Wishart, 1964, especially Introduction by E.J. Hobsbawm.

24马克思致《祖国记》  编辑委员会,1877 年 11 月,转载于《马克思恩格斯基本著作》,第 478 页。

24  Marx to the editorial board of Otechestvennive Zapiski, November 1877, reprinted in Marx and Engels, Basic Writings, p. 478.

25  马克思,《马克思恩格斯文集》,第 21 页。

25  Marx, A Contribution, p. 21.

26  马克思,《路易·波拿巴的雾月十八日》,1852年,转载于马克思和恩格斯,《基本著作》,第360页。

26  Marx, ‘The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’, 1852, reprinted in Marx and Engels, Basic Writings, p. 360.

27  马克思和恩格斯,《德意志意识形态》,1846年,载《基本著作》,第289页。

27  Marx and Engels, ‘The German ideology’, 1846, in Basic Writings, p. 289.

28   JH Clapham,《经济史研究》,1929 年,转载于 Harte,《经济史研究》,第 64-65 页。

28  J.H. Clapham, ‘The study of economic history’, 1929, reprinted in Harte, Study of Economic History, pp. 64–5.

29  约翰·巴伯,《苏联历史学家危机,1928-30》,麦克米伦出版社,1981年。

29  John Barber, Soviet Historians in Crisis, 1928–30, Macmillan, 1981.

30  参见他的《革命时代》(魏登菲尔德和尼科尔森出版社,1962 年)和《资本时代》(魏登菲尔德和尼科尔森出版社,1976 年)。

30  See his Age of Revolution, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962, and his Age of Capital, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976.

31   EP Thompson,《英国工人阶级的形成》,企鹅出版社,1968 年,第 9 页。

31  E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, Penguin, 1968, p. 9.

32  参见 Richard Johnson,“汤普森、热那亚和社会主义人文主义历史”,《历史工作坊杂志》第六卷,1978 年,第 79-100 页;以及 Perry Anderson,《英国马克思主义内部的论证》,Verso 出版社,1980 年。

32  See Richard Johnson, ‘Thompson, Genovese and socialist-humanist history’, History Workshop Journal, VI, 1978, pp. 79–100, and Perry Anderson, Arguments within English Marxism, Verso, 1980.

33   EP Thompson,《理论的贫困》,Merlin Press,1978 年,尤其是第 110-19 页。

33  E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory, Merlin Press, 1978, especially pp. 110–19.

34   Christopher Dyer 等(编),《罗德尼·希尔顿的中世纪》,牛津大学出版社,2007 年;Chris Wickham,“欠发达的记忆:马克思主义对中世纪历史做了什么,它还能做什么?”,载于 C. Wickham(编),《二十一世纪的马克思主义历史写作》,牛津大学出版社,2007 年,第 35 页。

34  Christopher Dyer et al. (eds), Rodney Hilton’s Middle Ages, Oxford University Press, 2007; Chris Wickham, ‘Memories of underdevelopment: what has Marxism done for Medieval history, and what can it still do?’, in C. Wickham (ed.), Marxist History-Writing in the Twenty-first Century, Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 35.

35   Peter Clarke,《刺猬的世纪:二十世纪政治意识形态的消亡》,载于 Peter Martland(编),《过去的未来:历史中的重大问题》,Pimlico,2002 年,第 125 页。

35  Peter Clarke, ‘The century of the hedgehog: the demise of political ideologies in the twentieth century’, in Peter Martland (ed.), The Future of the Past: Big Questions in History, Pimlico, 2002, p. 125.

36   Shula Marks 和 Richard Rathbone(编),《南非的工业化和社会变革》,朗文出版​​社,1982 年。

36  Shula Marks and Richard Rathbone (eds), Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa, Longman, 1982.

37   Wolfgang Knöbl,“‘不会消逝的理论’:现代化理论永无止境的故事”,载于 Gerard Delanty 和 Engin F. Isin(编),《历史社会学手册》 ,Sage 出版社,2003 年,第 96-107 页。

37  Wolfgang Knöbl, ‘“Theories that won’t pass away”: the never-ending story of modernization theory’, in Gerard Delanty and Engin F. Isin (eds), Handbook of Historical Sociology, Sage, 2003, pp. 96–107.

38   HR Trevor-Roper,《历史:专业人士与普通人》(1957 年),转载于 HL Lloyd-Jones、V. Pearl 和 B. Worden(编),《历史与想象》,Duckworth,1981 年,第 13 页。

38  H.R. Trevor-Roper, ‘History: professional and lay’ (1957), reprinted in H.L. Lloyd-Jones, V. Pearl and B. Worden (eds), History and Imagination, Duckworth, 1981, p. 13.

39  汤普森,《理论的贫困》,第 78 页。

39  Thompson, The Poverty of Theory, p. 78.

第九章

Chapter Nine

文化证据与文化转向

Cultural evidence and the cultural turn

前一章讨论的社会理论侧重于结构、变迁和能动性,而文化理论则关注意义和表征。文化理论的影响在当今文化史领域备受瞩目,可见一斑。文化史在一定程度上借鉴了成熟的艺术史(以及电影史)领域。但它对意义问题的探讨更多地受到文学理论和人类学的影响。本章最后将结合所谓的“文化转向”,对历史学的现状进行评估。

Whereas the social theories discussed in the previous chapter focus on structure, change and agency, cultural theory attends to meaning and representation. Its influence is evident today in the very high profile enjoyed by cultural history. To some extent cultural history draws on the well-established field of art history (and also the history of film). But its approach to questions of meaning is much more strongly influenced by literary theory and by anthropology. The chapter ends with an assessment of the present state of history in the light of what has come to be called the cultural turn.

在当今历史学术界,没有哪个概念比“文化”更常被提及。它不仅指示了特定研究的内容,也表明了作者的理论取向。对于初学者而言,“文化”之所以令人困惑,是因为它的含义多种多样。因此,我们不仅谈论视觉文化、文学文化和物质文化,还谈论暴力文化和恐惧文化——这意味着这些截然不同的领域在概念上存在某种关联。谈到“文化史”或“文化转向”,标志着历史学家研究重点的重大转变,但要理解其中所指的文化究竟是什么,需要一些耐心。三十年前,伟大的文化批评家雷蒙德·威廉姆斯曾说过:“文化是英语中最复杂的两三个词之一。” ¹这句话在今天依然适用。

In present-day historical scholarship no concept is more frequently invoked than ‘culture’. It serves as an indicator not just of the content of a given study but the theoretical orientation taken by the author. What makes ‘culture’ so baffling to the novice is that its meaning takes quite varied forms. Thus we speak not only of visual culture, literary culture and material culture, but also the culture of violence and a culture of fear – the implication being that these very different areas are conceptually related in some way. To speak of ‘cultural history’ or ‘the cultural turn’ registers a significant shift in the priorities of historians, but it takes some persistence to fathom what kind of culture is being referred to. Thirty years ago the great cultural critic Raymond Williams remarked, ‘culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language’.1 That is no less true today.

这种复杂性很大程度上源于文化在日常用语和学术话语中有着不同的含义。然而,人们最熟悉的文化指涉对象仍然是艺术和文学活动——有时被称为“高雅”文化——欣赏这些活动取决于教育、品味以及培养这种品味所需的闲暇时间;人们可能会期望一个“有教养”的人广泛阅读“伟大”文学作品,并经常出入美术馆和音乐厅。从这个意义上讲,文化有着悠久而引人入胜的历史,可以追溯到文字发明之前人类最早尝试记录经验或观察的时期。对高雅文化研究最为深入的学术学科是艺术史。文化史学家与艺术史学家有很多共同关注的问题。虽然理论上艺术史涵盖了所有视觉文化,但它主要关注的是作为一种自觉的精英体验的艺术,尤其关注绘画和雕塑。近年来,文化是精英专属的假设已被大众文化所驳斥。这是文化的第二个维度。普通民众或许在很大程度上被排除在“高雅”艺术之外,但其他文化形式却反映或构建了他们的世界观——从中世纪流行的宗教图像,到十七世纪的廉价读物,再到二十世纪大众报刊和畅销小说等大众文化。与精英文化不同,大众文化史并未发展成为一门独立的学科,因此历史学家在大众文化研究中占据了更为重要的地位。

Much of this complication arises from the fact that culture has one set of meanings in common parlance, and another in academic discourse. Still the most familiar referent of culture is those artistic and literary activities – sometimes referred to as ‘high’ culture – whose appreciation depends on education, taste, and the necessary leisure to develop that taste; a ‘cultured’ person might be expected to be widely read in ‘great’ literature, and regularly to frequent art galleries and concert halls. Culture in this sense has a long and absorbing history, going back to the earliest efforts to represent human experience or observation before writing had been invented. The academic study that has examined high culture most closely is art history. Cultural historians share many concerns with historians of art. While in theory covering all of visual culture, the history of art is largely concerned with art as a self-conscious elite experience, particularly with reference to painting and sculpture. More recently the assumption that culture is the preserve of an elite has been refuted in the name of popular culture. This is the second dimension of culture. The ordinary population may have been largely excluded from ‘high’ art, but other cultural forms reflected or constructed their outlook on the world – from the popular religious images of the Middle Ages, through the chapbooks of the seventeenth century, to the mass culture of the popular press and best-selling novels in the twentieth century. Unlike elite culture, the history of popular culture has not generated a separate academic discipline, and historians are much more to the fore in researching it.

艺术史和大众文化史都是以对象为导向的:二者的出发点都是一系列具有明显文化目的的器物或文本。然而,近年来,学术界对文化的定义变得更加宽泛。在历史学家的语境中,文化不再与特定的文化形式相关联。它不再被理解为“高雅”文化或“通俗”文化,而是构成一个社会特征并维系其成员的意义网络。在过去的任何特定社会中,人们是如何理解他们的日常经验的?他们对时间和空间、自然世界、痛苦和死亡、家庭关系和宗教仪式持何种态度?他们的共同价值观是什么?彼得·伯克将文化定义为“一个共享的意义、态度和价值观的系统,以及表达或体现这些意义、态度和价值观的象征形式(表演、器物)”。²注意:意义和价值观先于其表现形式而存在。从这个意义上讲,文化史无非就是对过去精神、情感和概念世界的重构。

Both the history of art and the history of popular culture are object-oriented: in each case the point of departure is a body of artefacts or texts which manifestly had a cultural purpose. In recent years, however, a much broader definition of culture has become prevalent in academia. In the usage of historians, culture has lost its association with specific cultural forms. It is understood not as ‘high’ or ‘low’ culture, but as the web of meanings that characterize a society and hold its members together. How, in any given society in the past, did people apprehend their daily experience? What were their attitudes to time and space, the natural world, pain and death, family relationships and religious observance? What were their common values? Peter Burke has defined culture as ‘a system of shared meanings, attitudes and values, and the symbolic forms (performances, artefacts) in which they are expressed or embodied’.2 Note that meanings and values come before the forms in which they were expressed. Cultural history in this sense amounts to nothing less than the reconstruction of the mental, emotional and conceptual world of the past.

最后,如今的历史学家们经常谈论“文化转向”。他们所说的“文化转向”不仅是指一门新的分支学科的出现,更是指历史学家研究重点的重新调整。如果文化被非常宽泛地定义——例如伯克提出的“共享意义体系”——那么文化史的研究范围就没有限制;它可以应用于政治冲突、贫富差距、女性地位等等。由此很容易得出这样的结论:文化是历史经验中最重要的维度。在某些版本的文化转向中,文化甚至成为历史研究中唯一被认为可以触及的过去维度:正如一位批评家所言,文化已经成为“底线,真正的历史现实”。³这种观点对其他历史研究视角产生了负面影响。社会史领域对此挑战感受最为深刻——社会史曾是20世纪70年代和80年代的主流研究分支,但如今却有时被诟病为固守过时的马克思主义和幼稚的方法论。社会史和文化史之间的张力至少在过去十年中贯穿了整个历史学界。本章我将分别阐述文化史的各个分支,并评估文化转向中那些更具帝国主义色彩的野心。

Finally, historians today talk much of ‘the cultural turn’. By this they mean not just the arrival of a new sub-discipline but a reorientation in the priorities of historians. If culture is very broadly defined – along the lines of Burke’s ‘system of shared meanings’ – there is no limit to the scope of cultural history; it can be applied to political conflicts, the divide between rich and poor, the position of women, and so on. From this it is a short step to the insistence that culture is the most important dimension of historical experience. In some versions of the cultural turn it is the only dimension of the past that is deemed accessible to historical enquiry: culture has become, in the words of one critic, ‘the bottom line, the real historical reality’.3 This point of view has negative implications for other perspectives on the past. The challenge has been most keenly felt in social history – the dominant branch of study in the 1970s and 1980s, but now sometimes condemned as wedded to an outdated Marxism and a naïve methodology. The tension between social and cultural approaches has run through the historical profession for at least the past ten years. In this chapter I describe each of the above branches of cultural history, as well as evaluating the more imperial pretensions of the cultural turn.

I

艺术史

Art history

所有留存至今的史料都是历史学家研究的宝贵素材。如果这一原则成立,那么它同样适用于视觉资料,而非文本资料。在这种情况下,历史学家应该像研究文献和日记一样,迅速地从绘画、雕塑和实物中得出结论。然而,我们阅读历史学家的著作后,却很难得出这样的印象。大多数历史学家并不对他们所选时期的艺术进行细致的分析;艺术很少被系统地视为证据;历史著作中的插图通常也仅仅是装饰性的,而非用于深入解读。要理解个中缘由,我们必须考察那些最精通视觉资料的人——艺术史学家——的实践。最早的艺术史学家是鉴赏家:他们以自己的鉴赏力为傲。鉴定艺术作品年代、识别艺术家以及将艺术作品归类为“风格”的技能,如今被视为一种狭隘且过时的方法。然而,鉴赏家的传统仍然支撑着这样一种观点:艺术作品与文字资料有着本质的区别,因为理解它们依赖于非常专业的技能,而且它们反映了不同的表现手法。它们的语言晦涩难懂、层次丰富——事实上,它们如此难以捉摸,以至于只有精湛的专业知识才能真正理解它们。

All surviving material from the past is grist to the historian’s mill. If that precept holds, it must apply to visual no less than textual sources, in which case the historian should be as quick to draw conclusions from paintings, sculpture and material objects as from deeds and diaries. Yet that is not the impression one is likely to get from perusing the work of historians. Most historians do not make detailed analysis of the art of their chosen period; art is seldom treated as evidence in a systematic way; and illustrations in works of history are usually just that – included for their decorative appeal rather than for close reading. To understand why this is so we must take account of the practice of those most expert in visual sources – the art historians. The first art historians were connoisseurs: they prided themselves on their skill in dating works of art, identifying the artist, and grouping works of art into ‘styles’. Nowadays that is regarded as a narrow and outmoded approach. But the tradition of connoisseurship nevertheless underpins the claim that works of art are fundamentally different from written sources, because understanding them depends on very specific technical skills, and because they reflect different conventions of representation. Their language is veiled and multi-layered – in fact so elusive that only an exclusive expertise can do justice to them.

艺术史中有两个流派采取了更符合历史学家研究方向的方法。第一个流派强调绘画的思想和文学内涵。20世纪30年代,以埃尔温·帕诺夫斯基为首的德国艺术史学派提出了“图像学”的概念,即从艺术作品被委托创作和创作的知识背景出发来解读艺术。这种方法尤其适用于意大利文艺复兴时期的艺术家,他们为成就卓著的赞助人创作,作品往往具有哲学或神话主题。 4 近年来,一些社会主义学者强烈反对传统艺术史中将艺术作品与其所处的社会割裂开来的倾向。T·J·克拉克认为,艺术家与社会主流结构之间的意识形态联系对于理解他们的作品至关重要。绘画和雕塑与其他任何类型的作品并无本质区别:它们都需要特定的创作条件,也需要特定的受众或消费者。艺术史学家的任务是揭示特定艺术作品与其创作时的社会结构和历史进程之间的联系。由此可见,正如克拉克所言,“艺术史不可能脱离其他类型的历史而存在” 。⁵

Two strands in art history take approaches that are rather more congenial to historians. First is an emphasis on the intellectual and literary content of paintings. In the 1930s a highly influential school of German art historians led by Erwin Panofsky developed the idea of ‘iconography’: the reading of art in relation to the intellectual world in which it was commissioned and created. This worked particularly well in the case of artists like those of the Italian Renaissance, who worked for highly accomplished patrons and delivered works with philosophical or mythological themes.4 More recently a group of socialist scholars has reacted sharply against the tendency in traditional art history to abstract works of art from the society that produced them. According to T.J. Clark, the ideological nexus binding artists to the dominant structures of society is crucial to understanding their work. Painting and sculpture are not intrinsically different from any other kind of work: they require certain conditions of production, and they feed off a certain kind of audience or consumer. The task of the art historian is to bring to light the links between a given work of art and the social structures and historical processes in which it was created. It follows that, as Clark puts it, ‘there can be no art history apart from other kinds of history’.5

欧文·帕诺夫斯基(1892–1968)

Erwin Panofsky (1892–1968)

他是杰出的一代犹太艺术史学家之一,他们才华横溢,在两次世界大战之间的德国开启了职业生涯,但被迫逃离纳粹的魔爪。帕诺夫斯基去了美国。其他人,特别是阿比·瓦尔堡和恩斯特·贡布里希,则定居英国,并在那里彻底改变了艺术史这一学科。

One of an extraordinary generation of gifted Jewish art historians who began their careers in Germany between the wars, but were obliged to flee the Nazis. Panofsky left for America. Others, notably Aby Warburg and Ernst Gombrich, settled in England, where they transformed the profession of art history.

面向历史学家的艺术史

Art history for historians

历史学家在艺术史领域中扮演着怎样的角色?我们必须承认一些纯粹主义者的观点。有时,为了阐明一幅画作而进行的漫长研究,对于那些将作品视为更宏大图景一部分的历史学家来说,可能并不具有吸引力。因此,一位研究文艺复兴时期新柏拉图主义哲学的思想史学家,不可能不了解它对波提切利和拉斐尔等画家的影响,因为他们都曾以寓言的形式描绘过新柏拉图主义;但是,直接研究特定作品的图像学,则可能与此截然不同。对画作的研究或许会以牺牲整个项目为代价。在这种情况下,历史学家和艺术史学家的研究重点就会有所区别。

Where do historians fit into the world of art history? Some of the purists’ case must be conceded. The extended research sometimes required to elucidate a single painting is not likely to appeal to a historian for whom the work in question is part of a much bigger picture. Thus an intellectual historian of Neo-Platonist philosophy in the Renaissance could hardly be unaware of its impact on painters like Botticelli and Raphael who represented it in allegory; but engaging directly in research on the iconography of particular paintings could probably only be pursued at the cost of the overall project. In such cases there is a demarcation of focus between the historian and the art historian.

新柏拉图主义

Neo-Platonism

新柏拉图主义是文艺复兴时期意大利的一场思想运动,旨在复兴柏拉图的哲学思想。它深受统治精英的青睐,尤其是在佛罗伦萨。新柏拉图主义反映了文艺复兴时期思想家们乐于从基督教启示之外汲取灵感的意愿。

An intellectual movement in Renaissance Italy that sought to revive the philosophy of Plato. It was much favoured among the ruling elites, especially in Florence. Neo-Platonism reflects the readiness of Renaissance thinkers to find inspiration outside the Christian revelation.

寓言

allegory

这是一个关于表征的故事,应该从象征意义而非字面意义去理解。

A story of representation to be understood symbolically rather than literally.

然而,这只是艺术的一种类型,也只是阐释策略的一种。那么,作为直接再现的艺术又如何呢?过去的艺术描绘了大量的日常细节——服饰、器具、建筑——这些细节并非艺术家创作的初衷,而是为了追求逼真效果或作为“背景”而被纳入其中。这类素材应被视为马克·布洛赫所说的“无意中作证”的又一例证(见上文,第93页)。在艺术史理论家中,对这类证据不屑一顾的情况并不少见。斯蒂芬·班恩认为,视觉图像无法证明任何事情,“或者说,它所证明的任何东西都过于琐碎,不足以作为历史分析的组成部分”。 6但像彼得·伯克这样的历史学家对这种观点提出了质疑,这是理所当然的。 7 他们的论点在文献类图像的案例中最具说服力。例如,伦敦城的景象——包括其最引以为傲的古迹——老圣保罗大教堂。1666年伦敦大火之前的状况并非无关紧要,因此历史学家密切关注温塞斯拉斯·霍拉尔在17世纪40年代绘制的精细地形图。艺术作品同样为武器、家具和餐具的设计提供了宝贵的证据。此外,值得注意的是,近年来,这些物品本身——如果它们幸存下来——也成为了“物质文化”研究的重点。8

However that is only one kind of art, and one kind of interpretative strategy. What about art as direct representation? The art of the past depicts a vast range of everyday detail – clothing, implements, buildings – that are incidental to the artist’s purpose but included in the interests of verisimilitude or ‘background’. Such material should be seen as yet another instance of Marc Bloch’s ‘witnesses in spite of themselves’ (see above, p. 93). Among art history theorists it is not uncommon to dismiss this kind of evidence. According to Stephen Bann, the visual image proves nothing, ‘or whatever it does prove is too trivial to count as a component in historical analysis’.6 But historians like Peter Burke rightly question this point of view.7 Their argument is most convincing in the case of images of a documentary kind. Thus the appearance of the City of London – including Old St Paul’s, its proudest monument – before the Great Fire of 1666 is not a trivial matter, which is why historians pay close attention to the highly detailed topographical engravings made by Wenceslaus Hollar in the 1640s. Art provides equally valuable evidence for the design of weapons, furniture and table-ware. It is also worth bearing in mind that in recent years the objects themselves – where they have survived – have become a focus of study under the label ‘material culture’.8

伦敦旧圣保罗大教堂,约1640年,由温塞斯拉斯·霍拉尔绘制。霍拉尔是一位才华横溢的捷克雕刻家,他为1666年伦敦大火前的伦敦留下了珍贵的记录。这幅画作格外引人注目,因为旧教堂的风格与克里斯托弗·雷恩在大火后设计的、至今仍保存完好的新教堂截然不同。(布里奇曼艺术图书馆/伦敦市政厅图书馆)

Old St Paul’s Cathedral, London, c.1640, by Wenceslaus Hollar. Hollar was a gifted Czech engraver who provided an invaluable record of London before the Great Fire of 1666. This image is the more striking because the style of the old cathedral is utterly different from the one that Christopher Wren designed after the fire, and which survives to this day. (Bridgeman Art Library/Guildhall Library, City of London)

历史学家关注的另一类重要艺术形式是为国家或其反对者服务的艺术。通过研究官方宣传,我们对纳粹政权的理解得到了极大的丰富。这些宣传将粗俗的口号与极具感染力的图像相结合;讽刺纳粹政权的作品对于理解20世纪30年代德国政治力量的博弈同样至关重要。在英国,政治漫画——其批判性极强,有时甚至带有尖刻的讽刺——的历史可以追溯到18世纪,如今一些杰出的政治漫画家也承认受到了前辈的影响。这些例子表明,对于历史学家而言,“糟糕的”艺术往往比伟大的艺术更具启发意义——艺术史学家并不认同这种观点,他们认为审美反应更为重要。

Another category of great interest to historians is art in the service of the state or its opponents. Our understanding of the Nazi regime has been enriched by the study of official propaganda which combined crude slogans with highly effective images; satirical attacks on the regime are no less useful for understanding the play of political forces in Germany during the 1930s. In England the political cartoon – highly critical and sometimes vitriolic – has a history extending back to the eighteenth century, and some of its leading exponents today acknowledge the influence of their distinguished predecessors. These examples suggest that for the historian ‘bad’ art is often more illuminating than great art – a view not shared by art historians, for whom aesthetic response counts much more.

解读一部中世纪杰作

Interpreting a medieval masterpiece

另一个例子说明了视觉证据在历史重建中的作用。中世纪英格兰最著名的艺术作品或许是描绘1066年诺曼征服英格兰的贝叶挂毯。这幅挂毯长70米,由一系列按叙事顺序排列的刺绣图案组成,颇似连环漫画。它很可能是在1077年至1082年间由受诺曼人委托的英国工匠在坎特伯雷制作的。大多数参观者都会被挂毯上栩栩如生的文物描绘所吸引,尤其是黑斯廷斯战役中使用的武器和盔甲。

One further example illustrates the place of visual evidence in historical reconstruction. The most famous work of art produced in medieval England was probably the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. The tapestry is 70 metres long and comprises a succession of embroidered panels in narrative sequence, not unlike a strip cartoon. It was probably made in Canterbury between 1077 and 1082, by English craftsmen working to a Norman agenda. Most people who view the Tapestry are intrigued by the vividness with which artefacts are represented, particularly the weapons and armour used at the battle of Hastings.

然而,贝叶挂毯的重要性不仅在于其收集了大量证据细节。它也是一次雄心勃勃的尝试,旨在确立官方对历史事件的描述,很可能是为此目的而委托制作的,委托人正是征服者威廉的同父异母兄弟,他曾参加过黑斯廷斯战役。挂毯早期描绘威廉自称是忏悔者爱德华合法继承人的场景,具有极其重要的政治意义。最后,挂毯还描绘了威廉在威斯敏斯特加冕的场景。阿比庄园为新国王的合法性盖棺定论。一位权威人士评价道:“这是有史以来最具震撼力的视觉宣传作品之一。”解读其宣传内容至关重要,因为这幅挂毯与两部编年史并列为极少数关于诺曼征服的第一手资料。毫不奇怪,它吸引了艺术史学家、考古学家和历史学家的大量学术研究。

However, the importance of the Bayeux Tapestry does not lie only in its accumulation of evidential detail. It was also an ambitious attempt to establish an official version of events, and it was probably commissioned for this purpose by William the Conqueror’s half-brother, who had fought at Hastings. The early scenes, featuring William’s claim to be the rightful successor of Edward the Confessor, were politically of the utmost importance. The concluding depiction of William’s coronation in Westminster Abbey set the seal on the new king’s legitimacy. ‘One of the most powerful pieces of visual propaganda ever produced’ is the verdict of one authority.9 Interpreting its propaganda content is crucial, because the Tapestry ranks alongside two written chronicles as one of the very small number of primary sources for the Norman Conquest. Not surprisingly it has attracted intense scholarly effort from art historians, archaeologists and historians.

贝叶挂毯的核心是黑斯廷斯战役,哈罗德国王在此役中阵亡。挂毯上用拉丁文“Rex Interfectus Est”标示了这一时刻。整幅挂毯现藏于诺曼底的贝叶镇。(Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

The centerpiece of the Bayeux Tapestry was the battle of Hastings, during which King Harold was killed. Here that moment is signalled by the Latin text ‘Rex Interfectus Est’. The entire tapestry is exhibited in the town of Bayeux (Normandy). (Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

因此,历史学家不应与视觉艺术保持距离,原因有很多。诚然,视觉艺术属于高度专业化的学术领域。然而,艺术史学家往往致力于从他们研究的作品中挖掘出最后一丝隐藏的意义,而非仅仅关注其显而易见的内涵。历史学家不太倾向于将绘画视为某个小圈子或秘密集团的产物;他们更感兴趣的是那些人人都能理解、并在不同作品和不同媒介中反复出现的意义。最重要的是,历史学家——与T·J·克拉克一样——坚持认为,艺术如同所有其他历史遗存一样,不能脱离其历史语境而被理解,这意味着要将其置于其经济、社会和文化环境中。这种方法能够将艺术作品锚定在特定的时间和地点,而不是像十九世纪的学者那样,将其视为“时代精神”(zeitgeist)的象征。

There are plenty of reasons, then, why historians should not hold the visual arts at arm’s length. It is true that they are the province of a highly specialized academic discipline. Yet art historians are often concerned to extract the last ounce of hidden meaning from the works they study, rather than dwell on their more accessible message. Historians are less inclined to see painting as the product of a coterie or cabal; they are more interested in meanings that were transparent to all, and which were repeated in different works and different media. Above all, historians insist – along with T.J. Clark – that art, like all other survivals of the past, cannot be understood apart from its historical context, which means placing it in its economic, social and cultural milieu. That procedure has the effect of anchoring works of art in specific time and place, rather than viewing them as symptomatic of the ‘spirit of the age’ (zeitgeist), as nineteenth-century scholars tended to do.

II

大众文化:前文字时代和现代

Popular culture: pre-literate and modern

乍看之下,“高雅”文化与大众文化之间的区别似乎令人反感,甚至带有一丝势利的精英主义色彩。这种区分也忽略了文化超越社会隔阂、与所有人对话的能力。基督教艺术尤其如此。在文艺复兴和巴洛克时期,一些最伟大的画作被陈列在教堂中,旨在增强普通信徒的灵性体验。然而,在历史和文化研究中,“大众”文化都占据着重要的地位,这并非没有道理。艺术作品有时或许会吸引大众,但这很少是其唯一目的;这类作品往往深受艺术家或赞助人(或两者兼而有之)的审美和象征意义的影响。另一方面,大众消费要求文化产品具有一定的透明度,并且需要广泛传播。随着十五世纪印刷术的发明,这一要求变得更容易实现。印刷术不仅带来了传播文字的可能性,也带来了通过图像接触文盲的可能性。这有力地纠正了以往认为文盲社会“游离于历史之外”,无法进行历史重建的观念。

At first glance the distinction between ‘high’ culture and popular culture may seem invidious. It carries more than a hint of snobbish elitism. It also loses sight of the capacity of culture to transcend social divisions and speak to all people. This is particularly true of Christian art. During the Renaissance and the Baroque, some of the greatest paintings were displayed in churches, where they were intended to intensify the spiritual experience of ordinary worshippers. However in both history and cultural studies ‘popular’ culture holds a recognized place, and for good reasons. Fine art may sometimes have reached out to a popular audience, but very seldom has that been its sole objective; such works were heavily imbued by the aesthetic and symbolic concerns of the artist or the patron, or both. Popular consumption, on the other hand, demands that the cultural product be reasonably transparent, and that it be extensively disseminated. That requirement became much easier to fulfil with the invention of printing in the fifteenth century. Printing held out the possibility, not just of spreading the printed word, but of reaching illiterate people by means of images. This is a vital corrective to the older notion that illiterate societies are ‘outside history’ in the sense of being beyond the reach of historical reconstruction.

巴洛克

Baroque

十七世纪欧洲视觉艺术盛行的风格。它与天主教会密切相关,倾向于强调戏剧性、情感性和华丽的装饰性。

The style that prevailed in the visual arts in Europe in the seventeenth century. It was strongly associated with the Catholic Church. It tended to emphasize the dramatic, the emotional and richly ornate.

德国宗教改革时期就是一个引人注目的例子。天主教会与马丁·路德的追随者之间的冲突,一方面体现在由博学的神学家及其强大的世俗赞助人组成的精英阶层内部。但基层民众的支持对于改革者的雄心壮志也至关重要。正如路德本人所说,图像“是为了孩子和普通民众,他们更容易被图画和图像所打动,从而回忆起神圣的历史,而不是仅仅依靠文字或教义”。R·W·斯克里布纳记录了大量廉价印刷品的涌现,这些印刷品颂扬改革者,讽刺天主教会。大多数印刷品都包含文字,但真正的核心在于图像,这些图像往往比其附带的说明文字更为复杂。这是一种新型的宣传战,但斯克里布纳指出,宗教与视觉图像之间的联系并非新鲜事:信徒们被鼓励以这种方式理解他们的信仰,而中世纪晚期的宗教活动也高度依赖视觉元素。当然,这种分析方法也存在局限性。我们无法判断所披露的视觉材料是否属实。斯克里布纳的作品反映了当时民众对宗教的态度,还是仅仅是对大众进行洗脑的粗暴尝试?我们很难判断这些宣传是否改变了人们的信仰和行为。然而,对于识字水平尚不高的早期现代社会而言,路德教图像的收藏是一份宝贵的资源。10

Reformation Germany provides a striking example. At one level the conflict between the Catholic Church and the followers of Martin Luther was played out within an elite composed of learned theologians and their powerful lay patrons. But grass-roots support was also vital to the ambitions of the Reformers. As Luther himself said, images were ‘for the sake of children and the simple folk who are more easily moved to recall sacred history by pictures and images than through mere words or doctrines’. R.W. Scribner has documented the huge outpouring of cheap prints that lionized the reformers and satirized the Catholic Church in Germany. Most of them included text, but the real meat was provided by images, which were often more complex than the captions accompanying them. This was a new kind of propaganda war, but Scribner points out that the association between religion and visual imagery was not new: the laity was encouraged to understand their faith in this way, and late medieval religion was intensely visual in its devotional practices. Inevitably there are limitations to this kind of analysis. We cannot tell whether the visual material brought to light by Scribner reflected popular attitudes to religion, or whether it was just a crude attempt to brainwash the multitude. Nor can we easily tell whether the propaganda modified people’s beliefs and behaviour. Yet for an early modern society where literacy was skin-deep the inventory of Lutheran images is a precious resource.10

在现代社会,随着识字率的提高,大众文化的侧重点也随之改变。从宗教改革到工业革命这段时期,欧洲精英阶层逐渐退出大众文化,使得“高雅”与“通俗”之间的界限更加泾渭分明。1900年,大多数西方社会都由现代化精英掌控。议会制度是这一现代化模式的一部分,享有投票权的人口比例也日益提高。正是在这样的背景下,到20世纪初,识字率几乎普及。历史学家面对着大量的书面证据。其中许多都与大众文化研究的关键问题之一相关:工人阶级消费的内容有多少是真正流行的,又有多少是政治精英试图强加自身价值观的产物?在维多利亚时代晚期的英国,像《每日邮报》这样发行量最大的报纸由持有鲜明政治观点的个体经营者所有,但其发行量取决于能否满足读者的诉求。这些问题正是关于瓜分非洲时期以及第一次世界大战前夕民众对帝国主义态度争议的核心所在。保守党——在1885年至1905年的大部分时间里执政——不仅支持帝国扩张,而且认为这将使该党更受普通选民的欢迎。因此,保守党报刊宣扬一种咄咄逼人的、挥舞国旗的胜利主义,批评者称之为“沙文主义”。与此同时,商业广告商经常使用殖民地意象来推销国内消费品(例如博夫里牛肉汁和梨牌香皂),暗示民众对帝国的认同。但是,工人阶级能够更多地掌控的文化形式却讲述了一个不同的故事。音乐厅在这一时期达到了鼎盛时期。由于远离伦敦西区那些昂贵的场所,音乐厅的管理者需要对下层阶级观众的偏见保持敏感。人们对大英帝国的热情并不高涨:他们支持英国士兵,但对他们为之奋斗的事业却相对冷漠。另一个反复出现的主题是与移居海外的亲人告别的痛苦。大英帝国它已融入英国社会结构之中,但认为它曾引起民众的狂热追捧这一假设需要谨慎对待。12

In modern societies with mass literacy, popular culture requires different emphases. The period between the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution is reckoned to have witnessed a progressive withdrawal of European elites from popular culture, making the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ much sharper.11 By 1900 most Western societies were controlled by modernizing elites. Parliamentary institutions were part of this modernizing model, with a progressively higher proportion of the population entitled to vote. These were the circumstances in which literacy became nearly universal by the beginning of the twentieth century. The historian is presented with a mass of written evidence. Much of it bears on one of the key issues in the study of popular culture: how much of what the working class consumed was genuinely popular, and how much was an attempt by the political elite to impose its values? In late Victorian Britain the most widely read newspapers like the Daily Mail were owned by individual proprietors with pronounced political views, but circulation depended on addressing the concerns of the readership. These issues lie at the heart of the controversy about popular attitudes towards imperialism during the Scramble for Africa and the years leading up to the First World War. The Conservative Party – in power for most of the period from 1885 to 1905 – not only supported imperial expansion but believed that it would make the party much more appealing to ordinary voters. The Conservative press therefore promoted an aggressive flag-waving triumphalism known to its critics as ‘jingoism’. At the same time commercial advertisers often used colonial imagery to sell items of domestic consumption (like Bovril and Pears Soap), suggesting a popular identification with the Empire. But cultural forms over which working-class people exercised more control tell a different story. Music hall was at its zenith during this period. Away from the more expensive venues in London’s West End, music hall managements needed to be sensitive to the prejudices of their lower-class audience. Enthusiasm for the Empire was muted: there was support for the British soldier, but relative indifference towards the causes for which he was fighting. Another recurrent theme was the pain of saying good-bye to loved ones emigrating overseas. The Empire was woven into the fabric of British society, but the assumption that it was the object of wild popular enthusiasm needs to be treated with some care.12

博夫里牛肉汁发明于19世纪80年代,最初是一种增强牛肉体质的茶饮。其广告因将产品与帝国主义联系起来而闻名。广告中,英国在布尔战争中的胜利(部分)被归功于士兵们对该产品的需求。(Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

Bovril was invented in the 1880s as a strengthening beef tea. Its advertisements were famous for linking the product with imperialism. Here British success in the Anglo-Boer War is attributed (in part) to the soldiers’ consumption of the product. (Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

III

摄影和电影

Photography and film

二十世纪,摄影和电影这种新媒介彻底改变了大众文化的研究方式。照相机早在19世纪40年代就已发明,但最初只是富人的消遣,其应用也受到技术限制。到了19世纪80年代,随着价格更低廉的相机和更快的快门速度的出现,摄影变得更加普及。新闻摄影迅速发展,而大量业余爱好者也记录下了日常生活的点点滴滴。摄影师。到1905年,十分之一的英国人口都拥有相机。

For the twentieth century the study of popular culture is transformed by a new medium – photography and film. The photographic camera had been invented in the 1840s, but initially it was a rich person’s hobby, and its application was restricted by technical limitations. Photography became more widely accessible in the 1880s with the arrival of cheaper cameras and faster shutter speeds. Photo journalism rapidly spread, while much of the texture of daily life was recorded by a plethora of amateur photographers. By 1905 one in ten of the British population had use of a camera.

历史学家是如何利用这些资源的呢?从广义上讲,照片和电影都是“文献”:与其他原始资料一样,它们提供了其创作时期的证据。不同之处在于,它们将过去呈现在我们眼前,似乎绕过了费力且往往不可靠的书面资料研究过程。新发现的电影资料可以极大地改变我们对过去的“认知”。1994年,在布莱克本一处废弃的地下室里,人们发现了800多卷胶片,这堪称此类发现中最引人注目的一次。这些胶片由米切尔和肯扬的合作团队于1901年至1907年间拍摄,记录了小镇的日常生活,尤其擅长拍摄足球比赛、禁酒游行以及工人涌入工厂大门等人群场景。大多数拍摄对象都是在毫无防备的情况下被抓拍的;但也有一些人对着镜头挥手微笑,因为他们知道当天晚些时候可以付费观看自己出现在银幕上的画面(因为米切尔和肯扬的拍摄完全是商业化的)。这些影片记录了工人阶级作为主体和观众的视觉呈现。13

How have historians made use of this resource? On any broad definition, photography and film are ‘documents’: like other primary sources, they provide evidence of the time in which they were created. The difference is that they bring the past before our eyes, apparently short-circuiting the laborious and often unreliable process of working from written sources. Newly discovered film can make a big difference to our sense of ‘knowing’ the past. In the most dramatic coup of its kind, more than 800 reels of film were found in a disused basement in Blackburn in 1994. Shot between 1901 and 1907 by the partnership of Mitchell and Kenyon, they document the daily life of the town, specializing in crowd scenes such as football matches, temperance parades, and workers pouring through the factory gate. Most of the subjects were caught off guard; but others waved and smiled at the camera, knowing that later in the day they could pay to see themselves on screen (since Mitchell and Kenyon were running a thoroughly commercial operation). The films document the visual arrival of the working class – as both subject and audience.13

纪录片在20世纪30年代成为一种公认的电影类型。人们对它对观众的影响有了深刻的理解,因此,纪录片往往承载着丰富的社会或政治信息。在美国,罗斯福新政政府委托一些顶尖摄影师,在大萧条时期拍摄普通民众的影像资料。这些成果令人震撼,但却受到诸多具体规定的限制。人们不被鼓励微笑;穿着盛装的人被要求换上便服;只有“值得尊敬的”穷人才能被拍摄。 14 电影也面临着类似的压力。在两次世界大战期间,电影院放映的新闻短片或许是英国观众了解时事的主要来源。然而,由于人们普遍认为任何政治争议都会吓跑观众,新闻短片批判性地传递信息的能力受到了限制。大萧条时期严峻的社会问题不允许破坏新闻短片积极向上的基调。罗伯特·罗森斯通问道:“纪录片究竟记录了什么?” 15答案是,它既记录了电影制作人的优先事项,也记录了银幕上呈现的生活片段。

Documentary film became a recognized genre in the 1930s. Its impact on audiences was well understood, with the result that it was often loaded with a social or political message. In the United States the New Deal administration commissioned leading photographers to compile a visual record of ordinary people during the Depression. The results were compelling, but they were constrained by very specific guidelines. Smiling was discouraged; people in their Sunday best were told to change into everyday clothes; and only the ‘worthy’ poor were photographed.14 Moving film was subject to comparable pressures. Newsreels shown in cinemas were perhaps the main sources of current affairs for British audiences between the World Wars. Yet their potential to critically inform viewers was inhibited by the belief that any hint of political controversy would drive away the audience. The acute social problems of the Depression were not allowed to undermine the upbeat tone of the newsreels. Robert Rosenstone asks ‘What does the documentary document?’15 The answer is that it documents the priorities of the film-maker as much as the slice of life appearing on screen.

新政

New Deal

富兰克林·罗斯福总统于1933年就职,正值美国大萧条时期,他推行的新政是美国经济的新方向。新政的核心内容是国家直接干预经济,以刺激经济并创造就业机会。

The new directions pursued in the United States by the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt who took office in 1933 at the height of the Depression. The central plank of the New Deal was direct intervention by the state to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

故事片提供的远不止是纪录片记录。它本身就是一种文化产品,而且是一种特别有影响力的文化产品。从有声电影发明到电视兴起的三十年间,故事片一直是英国公众的主要娱乐来源;1946年,三分之一的英国人口每周至少去一次电影院。 16当时,电影的文化重要性已得到认可。电影制作人刻意避免拍摄那些可能被批评为过于色情或过于政治化的内容。二战期间,政府引导电影走向宣传方向。许多常规电影作品可以被描述为“逃避现实”,然而,电影中对“美好”生活(或逝去的生活)的描述却反映了当时的大众价值观。正如罗斯·麦基宾所指出的,英国观众的口味明显偏爱美国电影,尤其是那些强调美国文化与英国文化差异的电影:这些电影被概括为“魅力”;但人们也欣赏许多美国电影中盛行的竞争性个人主义。17 1945年以后,战争电影的盛行表明,当时的国民情绪沉浸在对“正义战争”的回忆中,并渴望一种过时的英国男性气质。18

Feature film offers much more than a documentary record. It is itself a cultural product, and a particularly powerful one. For three decades – from the invention of ‘talkies’ until the rise of television – feature films were the British public’s principal source of entertainment; in 1946 one third of the entire population went to the cinema at least once a week.16 The cultural importance of films was recognized at the time. Film-makers studiously avoided content that could be criticized as too sexual or too political. During the Second World War they were nudged in the direction of propaganda by the government. Much of the routine film output could be described as ‘escapist’, yet the terms in which the ‘good’ life (or the lost life) was characterized said much about popular values. As Ross McKibbin points out, audience taste in Britain showed a decided preference for American films, particularly those that emphasized the differences of American from British culture: these were summed up as ‘glamour’; but admiration also extended to the competitive individualism that dominated so many American films.17 After 1945 the prominence given to war films points to a national mood preoccupied by memories of the ‘good war’ and by a yearning for an outmoded British masculinity.18

1927年,先锋摄影师拉斯洛·莫霍利-纳吉曾说:“未来的文盲将是不懂摄影。” 19此后的岁月里,文本与视觉之间的平衡发生了剧烈的变化,视觉的重要性显著提升。然而,历史学家们至今仍未充分理解莫霍利-纳吉的这番话。在历史学家的著作中,照片更多地被视为插图,而非需要批判性分析的文化产物。许多学者并不完全了解数字化时代之前的电影制作技术——尤其是像蒙太奇和引证这类横亘在观众与电影所谓“真实感”之间的技术。我们最多只能说,摄影和电影如今都比以往更加受到重视,它们既是独特的信息来源,也是大众文化的重要组成部分。

In 1927 the avant-garde photographer László Moholy-Nagy said, ‘the illiteracy of the future will be ignorance of photography’.19 The intervening years have seen the balance between the textual and the visual drastically shifted in favour of the latter. Yet historians have still not taken the full measure of Moholy-Nagy’s statement. In the works of historians photographs are more often encountered as illustrations, rather than treated as cultural productions requiring critical analysis. Not many scholars are fully informed about the techniques of film-making before the age of digitization – especially those like montage and interpellation, which come between the viewer and the supposed realism of film. The most one can say is that photography and film are taken more seriously than they used to be, both as uniquely revealing sources and as significant features of popular culture.

第四

IV

撰写文化史

Writing cultural history

正如上文所述,“文化”和“文化史”的含义已经远比对视觉资料的研究更为广泛和宏大。它们代表了整个领域。社会生活中的意义。视觉来源并非被排除在外,而是与其他所有被赋予意义的人类行为形式并列,这当然意味着绝大多数行为都具有意义。一个例子可以阐明向文化视角转变的意义所在。精神疾病治疗史是社会史中一个由来已久的主题;但直到最近,历史学家才开始尝试进入精神病患者以及给他们贴上“精神病”标签的人的内心世界——他们认识到,正如罗伊·波特所言,疯狂史“本质上是关于不同思维世界之间的冲突”。 20书写这些精神冲突与描述精神病患者被送往的机构之间存在着本质区别:前者是文化视角,后者是社会史。文化史是一个广阔而引人入胜的领域,它涵盖了从正式信仰、仪式和游戏到不为人知的姿态和外表逻辑的一切。

As suggested above, ‘culture’ and ‘cultural history’ have come to mean something much broader and more ambitious than the study of visual sources. They stand for the whole spectrum of meaning in the life of society. Visual sources are not excluded, but they take their place alongside all the other forms of human behaviour that are endowed with meaning, which of course means most of them. One example will clarify what is involved in the shift to a cultural perspective. The history of the treatment of mental disorders is a well-established theme in social history; but only recently have historians tried to enter the mentality of the insane and of those who labelled them so – in recognition that the history of madness is, in Roy Porter’s words, ‘centrally about confrontations between alien thought worlds’.20 There is all the difference between writing about those mental confrontations and describing the institutions to which the insane were committed: the first is a cultural approach, the second is social history. Cultural history is a vast and absorbing field, embracing everything from formal belief through ritual and play to the unacknowledged logic of gesture and appearance.

直白地说,这种文化史研究方法并无新意。对过往文化差异的好奇和尊重,与历史主义的精神相符。兰克及其追随者相信,凭借技巧和直觉,他们能够跨越时间的鸿沟,聆听过去的声音。但如今的侧重点已大相径庭。对兰克而言,意义的阐释是达到目的的手段——重现人类行为和民族命运;史料至关重要,因为它们提供了可靠的细节,从中可以讲述历史。而当代学者越来越倾向于将意义本身作为研究目的,他们认为人们如何诠释世界、如何呈现经验本身就具有内在价值。这意味着他们在另一个方面也与兰克的做法有所不同。兰克认为文本意义是个人的专属(因此,个人的背景和态度是研究的核心),而如今的历史学家最看重的是共享的或集体的意义。显然,仅凭直觉和同理心不足以达到这一目的。揭示集体意义需要深厚的理论功底。文化史是一个充满争议的领域,原因之一在于它受到各种相互竞争的理论体系的影响。在此,我将依次介绍其中最具启发性的三种理论:心理学、文学理论和人类学。

Baldly stated, there is nothing new about this kind of cultural history. Curiosity about – and respect for – the cultural difference of the past is in keeping with the spirit of historicism. Ranke and his followers believed that technique and intuition would enable them to reach across the gulf of time and listen to the past on its own terms. But the emphasis today is rather different. For Ranke the interpretation of meaning was a means to an end – the recreation of human action and the destiny of nations; the sources were central because they yielded authenticated detail out of which that story could be told. Present-day scholars increasingly study meaning as an end in itself, in the belief that how people interpreted their world and represented their experience is a matter of intrinsic interest. This means that they depart from Ranke’s practice in another respect. Whereas he regarded textual meaning as the property of the individual (whose background and attitudes were accordingly central to the enquiry), it is the shared or collective meanings that historians value most today. For this purpose instinct and empathy are manifestly inadequate. Uncovering collective meanings calls for theoretical sophistication. Cultural history is a contentious field, and one of the reasons is that it is pursued through competing bodies of theory. Here I describe in turn the three that have proved most illuminating: psychology, literary theory, and anthropology.

年鉴学派:历史心理学?

The Annales school: a historical psychology?

最早尝试研究过去集体心理的历史学家是年鉴学派的学者。年鉴学派的创始人,尤其是吕西安·费弗尔,呼吁研究“心智史”。在费弗尔看来,最糟糕的历史错位是心理错位——即不假思索地认为,人们在过去解读自身经验的心理框架与我们今天相同。他问道,中世纪的人们比今天更深刻地感受到昼夜和冬夏之间的差异,这些差异的心理意义是什么?费弗尔呼吁建立一门“历史心理学”,由历史学家和心理学家共同发展。 21心智史关注的不是正式阐述的原则和意识形态,而是情感、本能和隐性——这些思想领域往往没有得到直接的表达。罗伯特·曼德鲁或许是最接近实现费弗尔这一设想的人。在他的《现代法国导论,1500-1640》(1961)中,他将普通法国人的世界观描述为“被猎者的心态”:22面对敌对的环境和长期营养不良的无助感,导致了一种病态的过度敏感,人们对哪怕最轻微的情感冲击都会表现出过度的悲伤、怜悯或残忍。

The first historians who tried to investigate collective psychology in the past were those of the Annales school. The founders of Annales, especially Lucien Febvre, called for a history of mentalities. In Febvre’s view the worst kind of historical anachronism is psychological anachronism – the unthinking assumption that the mental framework with which people interpreted their experience in earlier periods was the same as our own. What, he asked, were the psychological implications of the differences between night and day and between winter and summer which were experienced much more harshly by medieval men and women than they are today? Febvre called for a ‘historical psychology’, developed by historians and psychologists working together.21 Instead of looking at formally articulated principles and ideologies, the history of mentalities is concerned with the emotional, the instinctive and the implicit – areas of thought that have often found no direct expression at all. Robert Mandrou has probably come closest to fulfilling Febvre’s programme. In his Introduction to Modern France, 1500–1640 (1961) he characterized the outlook of ordinary French people as ‘the mentality of the hunted’:22 helplessness in the face of a hostile environment and chronic under-nutrition produced a morbid hypersensitivity, in which people reacted to the least emotional shock by excessive displays of grief, pity or cruelty.

弗洛伊德与“心理史”

Freud and ‘psychohistory’

鉴于人类心理学本身就是一个理论高度发达的研究领域,历史心理学提出了许多重要的理论问题。费弗尔本人并不特别热衷于理论,但自他时代以来,历史学家在该领域面临的关键问题之一就是他们应该在多大程度上运用精神分析的研究成果。弗洛伊德声称,通过对神经症患者的临床工作,他建立了一套理论,将我们对人类心灵的理解置于一个全新的、更加科学的基础之上。他的理论围绕着无意识的概念展开——无意识是指心灵中被婴儿时期创伤经历(断奶、如厕训练、俄狄浦斯情结等)所印刻的部分,它决定了个体在成年后对世界的情感反应。对于弗洛伊德以及众多修正或扩展其理论的追随者来说,主要用途是……精神分析的起源在于治疗精神疾病。但弗洛伊德本人认为,他的理论也为理解历史人物提供了一把钥匙。在他1910年发表的关于达·芬奇的著名论文中,他实际上进行了首次“心理史学”的尝试。从20世纪50年代开始,这种传记研究方法广受欢迎,尤其是在美国,因为精神分析在美国的接受度高于其他任何国家。心理史学在最佳状态下,为历史传记引入了宝贵的心理现实主义元素,例如布鲁斯·马兹利什对詹姆斯·密尔和约翰·斯图亚特·密尔的颇具争议的研究——两人的生活中,理性往往容易掩盖情感。23事后看来,人们很容易将过去人物的生活塑造成令人满意的形象,强调理性和目标的稳定性。相比之下,心理史学则着重探讨人类行为的复杂性和不一致性;用彼得·盖伊的话来说,它将人们描绘成

Historical psychology raises large theoretical issues, given that human psychology is such a heavily theorized area of study. Febvre himself was not specially drawn to theory, but since his day one of the key questions for historians in this area is how far they should make use of the findings of psychoanalysis. Freud claimed that, as a result of his clinical work with neurotic patients, he had arrived at a theory that placed our understanding of the human mind on an entirely new and more scientific footing. His theory turned on the concept of the unconscious – that part of the mind imprinted by the experience of traumas in infancy (weaning, toilet-training, Oedipal conflict, etc.) which determines the emotional response of the individual to the world in later life. For Freud and the many followers who modified or extended his theory, the primary use of psychoanalysis lay in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. But Freud himself believed that his theory also offered a key to the understanding of historical personalities, and in a famous essay on Leonardo da Vinci (written in 1910) he in effect carried out the first exercise in ‘psychohistory’. From the 1950s onwards this approach to biography enjoyed a considerable following, especially in the United States, where psychoanalysis was more widely accepted than in any other country. At its best psychohistory introduces a valuable element of psychological realism into historical biography, as in Bruce Mazlish’s controversial study of James Mill and John Stuart Mill – two lives in which the intellectual is otherwise particularly likely to obliterate the emotional.23 With the benefit of hindsight it is all too easy to bend the lives of people in the past to a satisfying shape that emphasizes rationality and steadiness of purpose. Psychohistory, by contrast, dwells on the complexity and inconsistency of human behaviour; in Peter Gay’s words, it depicts people as

他们饱受冲突的冲击,情绪矛盾,试图通过防御策略来缓解紧张局势,而且大多模糊不清,甚至可能根本不明白自己为何会有这样的感受和行为。24

buffeted by conflicts, ambivalent in their emotions, intent on reducing tensions by defensive stratagems, and for the most part dimly, or perhaps not at all, aware why they feel and act as they do.24

这样一来,就可以恢复历史人物的内在动力,而不是将他们的动机局限于他们职业生涯所处的公共领域。

In this way the inner drives can be restored to historical figures, instead of confining their motives to the public sphere in which their careers were played out.

列奥纳多·达·芬奇 (1452–1519)

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

意大利艺术家兼工程师。他的作品基于对自然界的细致观察;他的笔记本中充满了解剖素描以及工程设计图,尽管其中一些最具有远见卓识的作品,例如他设计的直升机,已被证实是后人伪造的。

Italian artist and engineer. His work was based upon close observation of the natural world; his notebooks are full of anatomical sketches as well as designs for works of engineering, although some of the most apparently far-seeing of these, such as his design for a helicopter, have been shown to be later forgeries.

詹姆斯·米尔(1773–1836)

James Mill (1773–1836)

英国哲学家,杰里米·边沁功利主义思想的追随者,强调需要进行社会和行政改革,以确保最大多数人的最大幸福。他于1817年出版的《英属印度史》批判了印度本土文化的“落后”。他是约翰·斯图亚特·密尔的父亲。

British philosopher and follower of the utilitarian ideas of Jeremy Bentham, which stressed the need for modernizing social and administrative reform in order to ensure the greatest happiness of the greatest number. His 1817 History of British India criticized the ‘backwardness’ of native Indian culture. He was the father of John Stuart Mill.

约翰·斯图亚特·密尔(1806–73)

John Stuart Mill (1806–73)

英国哲学家。他于1859年出版的《论自由》一书,论证了在国家权力日益增长的背景下,个人自由的必要性。密尔坚定地拥护女性解放,并主张扩大议会选举权,使工人阶级也能参与其中。

British philosopher. His 1859 work On Liberty argued the case for individual freedom within the growing hold of the state. Mill was a committed believer in female emancipation and in widening the parliamentary franchise into the working class.

集体心理学

The psychology of the collective

精神分析的洞见并非局限于个体生活。事实上,从文化史学家的角度来看,精神分析的主要贡献在于引导人们关注养育、教养和认同的文化模式,以及无意识在集体心理中的作用。在《新教气质》(1977)一书中,菲利普·格雷文运用精神分析的视角,对殖民时期美国的三种儿童养育模式进行了梳理,并将其归纳为三种类型:“福音派”或权威型、“温和派”或权威型,以及“温文尔雅”或慈爱型。这些标签虽然体现了神学和社会地位的指导作用,但每种模式的影响都体现在以这些方式养育的儿童所特有的心理发展上。格雷文通过描述儿童对自我的态度来阐释由此产生的性格或“气质”:敌意福音派奉行控制,温和派奉行控制,而上流人士则奉行放纵。格雷文的分析方法在弗洛伊德的框架内,既考虑到了十七、十八世纪美国的文化多样性,又不坚持认为每个美国人都遵循这三种模式之一。精神分析范畴的吸引力在那些我们认为非理性或病态,但对当时的当事人而言却合情合理的历史事件中尤为突出。种族主义就非常适合这种方法。压抑和投射的模式已被成功地用于解释殖民扩张鼎盛时期白人对其他种族的态度——例如杰克逊时代的美国25

The insights of psychoanalysis are not confined to individual lives. Indeed from the perspective of the cultural historian, the main contribution of psychoanalysis has been to direct attention to cultural patterns of parenting, nurture and identification, and to the play of the unconscious in collective mentality. In The Protestant Temperament (1977), one of the most wide-ranging applications of a psychoanalytic perspective, Philip Greven has identified three patterns of child-rearing in colonial America: the ‘evangelical’ or authoritarian, the ‘moderate’ or authoritative, and the ‘genteel’ or affectionate. While these labels signal the directing influence of theology and social position, the impact of each pattern is traced through the characteristic psychic development of children raised in these ways. Greven describes the ensuing personalities or ‘temperaments’ by reference to attitudes towards the self: hostility in the case of the evangelicals, control in the case of the moderates, and indulgence in the case of the genteel. Within a common Freudian framework Greven’s approach makes allowance for the cultural diversity of seventeenth and eighteenth-century America without insisting that every American enacted one of the three models. The appeal of psychoanalytic categories is particularly strong in the case of those facets of the past that we consider irrational or pathological but which made compelling sense to those involved. Racism lends itself to this approach. Models of repression and projection have been used to excellent effect to explain white attitudes to other races during the heyday of colonial expansion – as for example in Jacksonian America.25

杰克逊时代的美国

Jacksonian America

1828年至1837年,涵盖了安德鲁·杰克逊(1767-1845)的总统任期。杰克逊是一位来自北卡罗来纳州的功勋将军,他采取了强硬的政治策略。他坚信应尽可能限制联邦政府的权力;然而,矛盾的是,他行使总统否决权的次数远超其前任,以此来强化自己的观点。他与美国银行展开了一场旷日持久且普遍受到民众拥护的斗争,认为它是中央集权暴政的体现。

The period 1828–37, covering the presidency of Andrew Jackson (1767–1845). Jackson, a successful general from North Carolina, adopted a robust approach to politics. He was a firm believer in keeping the powers of the federal authorities to a minimum; paradoxically, he enforced his view by using his presidential right of veto far more than his predecessors had done. He engaged in a long and generally popular battle against the Bank of the United States, believing it to be an example of centralized tyranny.

对心理史学的反对意见

Objections to psychohistory

在过去五十年的所有技术和方法论创新中,心理史学最能引起专业领域外人士的关注,但它也面临着相当严重的质疑,主要原因有二。首先是证据问题。治疗师试图通过分析梦境、口误以及患者提供的其他材料来还原其童年经历,而历史学家只能依靠文献资料,这些资料很可能很少包含此类材料,也鲜少包含关于患者早期童年的直接观察。许多我们认为至关重要的个人材料根本无法获取,然而,没有这些材料,就无法构建人格心理史学理论。其次,没有理由假定精神分析的理论同样适用于过去的时代。事实上,假设应该恰恰相反:弗洛伊德的情感发展图景深受文化制约,根植于19世纪末中产阶级城市社会的生育习俗和心理态度(尤其是性观念)。将弗洛伊德的洞见(或任何其他当代精神分析学派的洞见)应用于其他时期或社会中的个体都是不合时宜的。因为真正需要研究的是人类人格随时间推移的结构,而不是将其简化为某种公式。即使是“自我”的概念——我们(像弗洛伊德一样)可能将其视为人类的基本属性——在17或18世纪之前的西方文化中也可能相当陌生。正如一位特别……一位尖锐的评论家指出,心理史学很容易变成一种决定论式的“文化狭隘主义”。26运用精神分析理论的历史学家必须格外注意,在解释历史背景时要格外谨慎。

Of all the technical and methodological innovations made in the past fifty years, psychohistory has attracted the most curiosity outside the profession, but it is also open to quite serious objections, for two principal reasons. First, there is the problem of evidence. Whereas the therapist seeks to recover the infantile experience of the patient through the analysis of dreams, verbal slips and other material produced by the subject, the historian has only the documents, which are likely to contain very little, if any, material of this kind and very few direct observations about the subject’s early infancy. Much personal material that we might consider highly relevant is completely unobtainable, yet this is the bricks and mortar without which a psychohistorical theory of personality cannot be devised. Second, there is no reason to assume that the propositions of psychoanalysis hold equally good for previous ages. Indeed, the assumption should rather be the reverse: Freud’s picture of emotional development is very culture-bound, rooted in the child-bearing practice and mental attitudes (especially towards sex) of late nineteenth-century middle-class urban society. The application of Freud’s insights (or those of any other contemporary school of psychoanalysis) to individuals living in any other period or society is anachronistic. For the structure of human personality over time is precisely what needs to be investigated, instead of being reduced to a formula. Even the notion of the self, which we (like Freud) may regard as a fundamental human attribute, was probably quite foreign to Western culture before the seventeenth or eighteenth century. As one particularly trenchant critic has put it, psychohistory can easily become a determinist form of ‘cultural parochialism’.26 Historians who draw on psychoanalytic theory have to be particularly careful to temper their interpretations with a respect for historical context.

狭隘主义

parochialism

目光短浅,只关注自身所在的地区和事务,而忽略了更广泛的背景。“教区性的”字面意思是“指教区”。

Narrow-minded concern with one’s own immediate locality and concerns without regard to their wider context. ‘Parochial’ means literally ‘referring to a parish’.

V

V

文学理论

Literary theory

第二套与文化史相关的理论体系源自文学研究。这是一种对文本的批判性立场,也被称为解构主义或话语理论。我们在第七章中看到,文学理论家们如何借鉴索绪尔关于语言物质性和任意性的理论,摒弃了“真实作者声音”的概念,转而将文本视为可以进行多种“解读”的开放文本,不同的读者会从中发现不同的意义。在第七章中,我着重探讨了文本的不确定性对历史认识论地位所带来的极其令人不安的影响。但重要的是要认识到,在实践层面,这些新的文本理论为过去文化的重构开辟了重大前景。传统上,历史学家将他们的原始资料视为了解事件或心理状态的入口——通往那些超越文本的“客观”或可证实存在的事物的入口。文学理论教导历史学家关注文本本身,因为文本的价值不在于对现实的任何反映,而在于揭示人们感知现实的范畴。从这个角度来看,原始资料本质上是文化证据——修辞策略、表征符号、社会隐喻等等。文学理论赋予历史学家超越文本字面意义(这是他们学术研究的传统关注点)的信心,让他们能够聆听更广泛的声音,远远超出将资料视为“无视自身缺陷的见证”这一准则的范畴。细读——或者说“逆向阅读”——比传统的史学方法更加耗时,因此它通常应用于文本内容丰富但数量较少的原始资料。

The second body of theory that bears on cultural history is drawn from literary studies. This is the critical stance towards texts variously known as deconstruction or discourse theory. We saw in Chapter 7 how literary theorists, drawing on Saussure’s theory of the materiality and arbitrariness of language, have rejected the notion of the authentic authorial voice, and instead view the text as open to a multiplicity of ‘readings’ in which different audiences find different meanings. In Chapter 7 I dwelt on the exceedingly troubling implications that the indeterminacy of texts holds for the epistemological status of history. But it is important to recognize that, at a practical level, the new theories of the text open up the prospect of significant advances in the cultural reconstruction of the past. Traditionally historians regarded their primary sources as a point of access to events or states of mind – to what had an ‘objective’ or demonstrable existence beyond the text. Literary theory teaches historians to focus on the text itself, since its value lies less in any reflection of reality than in revealing the categories through which reality was perceived. From this perspective, primary sources are essentially cultural evidence – of rhetorical strategies, codes of representation, social metaphors and so on. Literary theory gives historians the confidence to move beyond the letter of the text (the traditional focus of their scholarship) and listen to a wider range of voices that goes well beyond the scope of the injunction to treat the sources as ‘witnesses in spite of themselves’. Close reading – or reading ‘against the grain’ – is even more time-consuming than the time-honoured procedures of historical method, and for this reason it tends to be applied to smaller bodies of source material of considerable textual richness.

语言话语与政治语言

Linguistic discourse and the language of politics

这些思想对政治思想史产生了显著影响。如果语言促进某些思维模式而排斥其他思维模式,并且如果语言在某种意义上决定了意识(而非如常识所言的意识决定语言),那么政治秩序必然依赖于语言结构以及行政结构:政治既存在于特定的地域或社会之中,也存在于话语领域之中。在现代政治体中,通常存在着多种相互交织的话语体系,它们争夺主导地位——例如,表达对国家的崇敬、阶级团结或种族排他性。英国革命就是一个有据可查的例子。凯文·夏普认为,在1642年之前,王室和议会仍然拥有许多共同的政治价值观,他们的争端也建立在对法律和先例的共同尊重之上。内战真正具有革命性意义的地方在于,那些反抗国王的人被迫采取了他们的语言尚无法表达的行动。到十七世纪末,由于1688-1689年的光荣革命,君主与人民之间的关系已在权利和契约层面得到重新定义。根据这种解读,话语的转变与当时的制度和经济变革同样重要。 27法国大革命也具有类似的意义。这场革命以“自由 平等 博爱”为名获得合法性,其意义之一在于“发明了一种新的话语形式,从而构建了新的政治和社会行动模式”。28因此,语言即权力。历史学家们通过吸收话语理论的这一核心观点,重新定义了他们对政治思想的理解。他们揭示了政治体的成员如何在特定话语的概念框架内进行政治体验、反思和行动,以及这些话语本身如何受到质疑、调整,有时甚至彻底瓦解。

These ideas have had a marked impact on the history of political thought. For if language facilitates certain modes of thought while excluding others, and if there is a sense in which language determines consciousness (rather than the other way round, as common sense declares), then the political order must depend on linguistic as much as administrative structures: politics is constituted within a field of discourse, as well as within a particular territory or society. In modern polities there is usually a number of alternative and interlocking discourses jostling for ascendancy – expressing, for example, reverence for the state, class solidarity or ethnic exclusivity. A well-documented example is the English Revolution. Kevin Sharpe has argued that prior to 1642 Crown and Parliament still shared many political values, and their disputes were framed by a common respect for the law and for precedent. What was truly revolutionary about the Civil War was that those who rebelled against the king were led to act in ways which their language could not as yet represent. By the end of the seventeenth century, as a result of the Glorious Revolution of 1688–9, the relationship between king and people had been redefined in terms of rights and contract. According to this interpretation the shift in discourse was no less significant than the institutional and economic changes of the period.27 A comparable case has been made for the French Revolution. Legitimized under the banner of liberté, egalité, fraternité, the Revolution was among other things ‘the invention of a new form of discourse constituting new modes of political and social action’.28 Language, then, is power. In taking on board this central perception of discourse theory, historians are redefining their understanding of political thought. They are demonstrating how the members of a polity experience, reflect and act politically within the conceptual boundaries of particular discourses, and how these discourses are themselves subject to contestation, adaptation and sometimes total rupture.

自由、平等、博爱

liberté, egalité, fraternité

“自由、平等、博爱”,这句口号在法国大革命期间经常被铭刻在建筑物、文件和其他官方场所上。它试图概括《人权宣言》的核心精神。

‘Liberty, equality, fraternity’, the slogan often inscribed on buildings, documents and other forms of officialdom during the French Revolution. It attempted to sum up the essential spirit of the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

政体

polity

由某种形式的民事政府管理的国家或其他实体。

A state or other entity run by some form of civil government.

话语分析对于理解民族性这一概念的历史意义也大有裨益——民族性这一概念传统上几乎被历史学家不假思索地使用。第一章指出,民族认同并非“既定的”,而是源于特定的历史环境,并随着时间推移而变化。如果民族始终处于不断重建或“发明”的过程中,那么文化符号的构建以及对历史的高度选择性解读将至关重要。民族历史。向大众传播这些历史资料是现代世界民族主义的根本所在。正因如此,在《想象的共同体》(1983)——这部对民族主义最具影响力的分析著作之一——中,本尼迪克特·安德森高度重视“印刷资本主义”,认为它是自16世纪以来民族主义发展的先决条件。对爱国主义语言的更深入研究表明,特定民族主义的内容是如何随着时间推移而变化的。在英国,自宗教改革以来,民族主义与君主制、民众自由和外国人之间的关系一直在不断变化——这仅仅是政治倾向的三个指标。由于“民族”更多的是一种想象而非现​​实,因此表达民族的隐喻具有强大的力量,而这些隐喻的通俗含义——无论是民主的还是威权的——都成为了不同政治秩序观念之间争论的战场。29

Discourse analysis also has much to contribute to the historical understanding of nationality – a category traditionally used by historians almost without reflection. It was pointed out in Chapter 1 how national identity is never ‘given’, but arises from specific historical circumstances which change over time. If nations are forever being constructed anew or ‘invented’, much will depend on the elaboration of cultural symbols and on highly selective renderings of the national past. The dissemination of this material to a mass audience is fundamental to nationalism in the modern world. For this reason in Imagined Communities (1983) – one of the most influential analyses of nationalism – Benedict Anderson places great weight on ‘print capitalism’ as a prerequisite for the growth of nationalism since the sixteenth century. More detailed work on the languages of patriotism shows how the content of particular nationalisms has changed over time. In England since the Reformation it has had a shifting relation to the monarchy, popular liberties and foreigners – to name just three indicators of political hue. Because ‘the nation’ is more imaginary than real, the metaphors in which it is expressed have great potency, and their popular meaning – be it democratic or authoritarian – becomes a battleground between rival conceptions of the political order.29

宗教改革

Reformation

在英国,十六世纪初经历了宗教变革的过程,英国教会首先放弃了教皇的权威,转而支持君主的权威,然后建立了一种被称为英国国教的新教形式。

In England, the process of religious change in the early sixteenth century in which the English Church first renounced the authority of the papacy in favour of that of the monarch and then established a form of Protestantism known as Anglicanism.

一些历史学家如今对史料的文学形式——或体裁——给予了极大的关注,这也体现了以语言为主导的文本研究方法。他们的论点是,我们对文本表面内容的解读可能需要根据其所属的体裁进行大幅修正,因为体裁会影响读者的理解。娜塔莉·泽蒙·戴维斯(Natalie Zemon Davis)在研究十六世纪法国法庭上请求赦免的请愿书时,很快意识到这些信件不能简单地视为直接的个人陈述。它们是由公证人以一种明显带有文学性的方式撰写的,反映了当时的多种体裁,包括虚构体裁,每种体裁都有其自身的惯例。“我正在寻找十六世纪人们如何讲述故事的证据,”她写道。

The language-led approach to texts is also evident in the attention that some historians are now giving to the literary form – or genre – in which their sources are written. Here the argument is that our interpretation of the ostensible content of a text may need to be considerably modified in the light of the genre to which it belonged – and which conditioned the understanding of its readers. When Natalie Zemon Davis studied the letters of remission submitted to the French courts in the sixteenth century by supplicants seeking a royal pardon, she soon realized that they could not be regarded simply as direct personal statements. They were drawn up by notaries in an avowedly literary way which reflected several contemporary genres, including fictional ones, each with its own conventions. ‘I am after evidence of how sixteenth-century people told stories’, she writes,

……他们认为好故事应该具备哪些要素,他们如何解释动机,以及如何通过叙事来理解意料之外的事情,并将连贯性融入到当下的体验中。30

… what they thought a good story was, how they accounted for motive, and how through narrative they made sense of the unexpected and built coherence into immediate experience.30

戴维斯将她的书命名为《档案中的虚构》,并非因为她认为这些赦免信是捏造的,而是为了引起人们对这些信件所提出的本质文学问题的关注。在这里,请愿者是否有罪的问题,让位于意义和表征的问题。

Davis calls her book Fiction in the Archives, not because she regards the letters of remission as fabrications, but to draw attention to the essentially literary issues that they pose. The question of whether the supplicants were guilty is here subordinated to questions of meaning and representation.

减刑信

letters of remission

请求皇家赦免或减轻法院判决的正式信函。

Official letters requesting a royal pardon or a reduction in the sentence imposed by a court.

公证人

notaries

有权起草法律文件的法律文员。

Legal clerks with the authority to draw up legal documents.

六年级

VI

人类学

Anthropology

但对近来历史学家而言,集体心态领域最富启发性的思想来源并非文本理论,而是文化人类学。尽管研究当今小型社会与历史的关联或许并不显而易见,但历史学家应当关注人类学的研究成果,原因有以下几点。对于那些专攻第三世界历史的学者而言,这些原因最为明显,但对于从事更传统领域研究的同行也同样适用。人类学的研究成果揭示了那些极易受气候和疾病影响、缺乏对环境的“科学”控制、且与自身地域紧密相连的人群所呈现出的心态多样性——这些条件在中世纪和近代早期的西方社会中普遍存在。我们自身社会中某些早已消失的特征,例如血仇巫术指控,在当今世界某些地区仍然存在;对现代变体的直接观察有助于我们更深入地理解相关问题,从而更好地探讨我们自身历史中类似特征的问题,因为这些特征的直接证据可能非常稀少或不均衡。基思·托马斯的《宗教与魔法的衰落》(1971)便是这方面的经典例证。该书借鉴了埃文斯-普里查德和其他民族学家的研究,为早期现代英国的巫术研究制定了新的议程。对于通过文献资料接触过去社会的历史学家而言,他们应该——或者说必须——感受到与现代田野调查员在偏远而“异域”社群中所经历的相同的“文化冲击”。

But for recent historians the most fertile source of ideas in the area of collective mentality has been not textual theory but cultural anthropology. Although the relevance to history of the study of small-scale societies of the present day may not be readily apparent, there are several reasons why historians should be alert to the findings of anthropology. These reasons are most obvious in the case of those historians who are themselves specializing in some area of Third World history, but they apply also to their colleagues in more conventional fields. The findings of anthropology suggest something of the range of mentalities to be found among people who are acutely vulnerable to the vagaries of climate and disease, who lack ‘scientific’ control of their environment, and who are tied to their own localities – conditions that obtained in the West during most of the medieval and early modern periods. Certain long-lost features of our own society such as the blood feud or witchcraft accusations still persist in some parts of the world today; direct observation of the modern variant prompts a sounder grasp of the relevant questions to be asked about comparable features in our own past for which the direct evidence may be very sparse or uneven. The classic demonstration of this is Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971) which drew on the studies of Evans-Pritchard and other ethnographers to define a new agenda for the study of witchcraft in early modern England. For historians encountering a past society through the medium of documentary sources there is – or ought to be – the same sense of ‘culture shock’ that the modern field-worker experiences in a remote and ‘exotic’ community.

血仇

blood feud

一场激烈的冲突,往往牵涉到主人公的家人和朋友,并且会持续好几代人。

A bitter conflict, often involving the families and friends of the protagonists and stretching over more than one generation.

心智人类学

The anthropology of mentality

自托马斯开创性的工作以来,人类学对文化史学家的意义已从单纯的类比来源扩展到方法论和理论层面。关键问题在于人类学家如何把握研究对象的世界观。由于人类学家在研究中同时扮演参与者和观察者的角色,他们必然会注意到前文字时代、技术落后的社会中存在的截然不同的思维模式。事实上,“心智”正是他们专业知识的核心,而如今历史学家最流行的“文化”概念本质上是一个人类学概念。在田野调查中,人类学家特别关注象征性行为——例如命名仪式或祈雨仪式——部分原因是此时陌生感最具挑战性,部分原因是符号和仪式很少是单一维度的,而是表达了一系列复杂的文化价值观;那些看似怪诞和非理性的行为往往反映了一种思想和行为的连贯性,而这种连贯性最终维系着社会。颇具影响力的美国人类学家克利福德·格尔茨将他对细节丰富、具体事实的文化解读称为“深度描述”:一个事件——最著名的例子是巴厘岛的斗鸡——或许就能让我们窥见整个文化,前提是我们不将我们自身理解的连贯性强加于它之上。31这里与文学理论有一个有趣的契合点:正如文本可以有多种解读一样,仪式或符号也可能产生一系列含义。格尔茨本人将文化视为文本的集合,他用“文本类比”来解释文化人类学的目标。32

Since Thomas’s path-breaking work the relevance of anthropology to the cultural historian has broadened to become one of method and theory, not just a source of suggestive analogies. The key issue is how anthropologists get to grips with the world-view of their subjects. Because they conduct their research by combining the roles of participant and observer, anthropologists can hardly fail to register the vastly different mental assumptions that operate in pre-literate, technologically simple societies. Indeed ‘mentality’ is at the heart of their specialist expertise, and the concept of ‘culture’ now most in vogue with historians is essentially an anthropological one. In fieldwork anthropologists pay special attention to symbolic behaviour – such as a naming ceremony or a rain-making ritual – partly because the sense of strangeness is then most challenging, and partly because symbol and ritual are seldom one-dimensional but express a complex range of cultural values; the seemingly bizarre and irrational tend to reflect a coherence of thought and behaviour which in the last resort is what holds society together. The influential American anthropologist Clifford Geertz referred to his own cultural readings of very densely textured, concrete facts as ‘thick description’: one episode – in the best-known case a Balinese cock-fight – may provide a window on an entire culture, provided we do not impose on it a coherence that makes sense in our terms.31 There is an interesting convergence with literary theory here: just as a text is open to many readings, so a ritual or symbol may yield a range of meanings. Geertz himself regarded culture as being like an assemblage of texts, and he explains the goal of cultural anthropology in terms of ‘the text analogy’.32

由于对仪式的描述为我们了解过去文字出现之前的社会提供了最有力的证据,因此历史学家们欢迎文化人类学的见解也就不足为奇了。娜塔莉·泽蒙·戴维斯是众多承认格尔茨影响的历史学家之一。她在描述自己对十六世纪法国社会的研究时,援引了“文本类比”这一概念:

Since descriptions of ritual provide some of our best evidence for pre-literate societies of the past, it is not surprising that historians have welcomed the insights of cultural anthropology. Natalie Zemon Davis is one of many historians who acknowledge the influence of Geertz. She invokes the ‘text analogy’ in describing her work on sixteenth-century French society:

工匠的入会仪式、村庄的节日组织活动、妇女们为产妇举行的非正式聚会或男女们为讲故事而举行的非正式聚会,甚至街头骚乱,都可以像日记、政治论文、布道或法律汇编一样,被“解读” 。33

A journeyman’s initiation rite, a village festive organization, an informal gathering of women for a lying-in or of men and women for story-telling, or a street disturbance could be ‘read’ as fruitfully as a diary, a political tract, a sermon, or a body of laws.33

中世纪晚期英格兰的弥撒、近代早期法国的狂欢节以及君主制的仪式,都只是引发此类研究的众多象征性素材中的一部分。罗伯特·达恩顿以精湛的“深度描述”技巧,分析了18世纪30年代巴黎印刷学徒杀猫这一看似微不足道的事件。他将其中一位印刷工的回忆置于一系列当时的文化证据之中,揭示了这场杀猫事件如何巧妙地融合了猎巫、工人起义和强奸等隐晦的元素——这正是学徒们发现……的原因。这是一种极其有趣的发泄方式。“即使是像宰猫这种一点也不好笑的事情,理解其中的笑点也是‘理解’这种文化的第一步。” 34在这种历史研究中,仔细观察的细节至关重要,而且往往要考虑好几个方面。

The mass in late medieval England, the carnival in early modern France and the rituals of monarchy are just some of the symbolic material that has attracted enquiry along these lines. In a bravura demonstration of the technique of ‘thick description’, Robert Darnton has analysed the trivial episode of a cat-killing by apprentice printers in Paris during the 1730s. By placing the reminiscences of one of the printers in the context of a varied range of contemporary cultural evidence, Darnton shows how the massacre of cats combined veiled elements of a witch-hunt, a workers’ revolt and a rape – which is why the apprentices found it such a hugely amusing way of letting off steam. ‘To get the joke in the case of something as unfunny as a ritual slaughter of cats is a first step towards “getting” the culture.’34 In this kind of history, carefully observed detail really counts, often several times over.

产假

lying-in

分娩。

Childbirth.

人类学的局限性

The limitations of anthropology

达恩顿的猫屠杀事件展现了这种方法的吸引力,但也揭示了它的危险性。人类学家作为参与式观察者,能够观察仪式并生成额外的背景证据,而历史学家则必须接受史料的局限性。猫的杀戮事件仅在一份记录中有所描述,而且还是一份回顾性的记录。达恩顿将猫的杀戮视为一场预示着法国大革命的工人起义。但是,正如拉斐尔·塞缪尔所指出的,这个故事同样可以用来分析青少年文化或研究社会对动物的态度;单一的史料很容易导致“符号过载”。文化史学家大多只能依靠间接和模糊的证据来了解普通人的内心世界,因此,在全心全意地接受文化人类学或文本理论的解释方法之前,认识到这些局限性是恰当的。事实上,人类学方法的价值不仅在于其对细节的处理,更在于其宏观的视角。它有力地提醒我们,历史不仅仅是从外部可以观察到的趋势和结构,它还要求我们对过去人们的文化抱有充分的尊重,并愿意从他们的视角看待世界。

Darnton’s cat massacre demonstrates the excitement of this approach – but also its dangers. Whereas the anthropologist, as a participant-observer, is in a position to observe the ritual and generate additional contextual evidence, the historian has to accept the limits of the sources. The cat-killing is described in only one account, and a retrospective one at that. Darnton treats the cat-killing as a workers’ revolt which prefigured the French Revolution. But, as Raphael Samuel points out, the story could just as well have served an analysis of adolescent culture or a study of social attitudes towards animals; a single source lends itself all too readily to ‘symbolic overloading’.35 Cultural historians are for the most part thrown back on oblique and ambiguous evidence of what went on in the minds of ordinary people, and it is appropriate to recognize these limitations before wholeheartedly embracing the interpretative procedures of cultural anthropology or textual theory. In fact the value of the anthropological approach lies as much in its general orientation as in its handling of detail. It serves as a strong reminder that history is not just about trends and structures that can be observed from the outside, but also demands an informed respect for the culture of people in the past and a readiness to see the world through their eyes.

第七章

VII

文化转向的影响

The impact of the cultural turn

二十年前,大多数社会史,以及许多政治史,都自信地以阶级和民族等连贯的集体概念来撰写。谈论“工人阶级”或“法兰西民族”是合理的,因为这些群体建立在共同的生存状态之上,从中衍生出共同的、定义性的意识,这种意识超越了构成该群体的个体的生命历程。马克思主义者对阶级和民族问题的处理方式最能体现这一点。阶级意识固然重要,但自由主义学术界在对待政党、宗教派别和国家等跨越世代的历史主体方面,也并无太大差异。在自由主义和马克思主义的著述中,这些社会身份几乎被赋予了物质现实的意义,从而推动了关于进步或革命命运的“宏大叙事”的形成。到了20世纪70年代,这种社会、物质和进步的范式或许尚未占据主流,但它无疑代表了当时的前沿,也是最重要的史学辩论的焦点。

Twenty years ago most social history, and much political history also, was confidently written in terms of coherent collectivities such as class and nation. It made sense to write about ‘the working class’ or ‘the French nation’ because these groups were grounded in a shared existence from which they derived a common, defining consciousness, extending beyond the life-span of the individuals who happened to constitute the group at any one time. This was most explicit in the case of the Marxists’ handling of class and class consciousness, but liberal scholarship was little different in its treatment of political parties, religious denominations and nations as historical actors spanning the generations. In both liberal and Marxist writing these social identities acquired an almost material reality, which served to drive forward ‘grand narratives’ of progress or revolutionary destiny. By the 1970s this social, material and progressive paradigm may not have taken over the mainstream, but it undoubtedly represented the cutting edge and was the focus of the most important historiographical debates.

这种社会范式受到了来自两个方向的冲击。首先是年鉴学派历史学家,他们强调集体心态。他们从一开始就断言,如果不重建过去人们的精神图景,任何对过去的描绘都是不完整的。布罗代尔将心态纳入了他的结构框架,将其与地理因素一起纳入其“长时段”理论。到了20世纪80年代,年鉴学派的领军人物提出了更进一步的观点,他们宣称心态是历史经验的根本层面,而文化则是其主要表现形式。正如乔治·杜比所言:

That social paradigm has come under attack from two directions. First in the field were the Annales historians with their emphasis on collective mentalities. They had, from the beginning, asserted that no picture of the past could be complete without a reconstruction of its mental landscape. Braudel incorporated mentalities into his structural scheme by including them alongside geographical factors in his longue durée. By the 1980s the leading Annalistes were claiming more than this, declaring that mentality was the fundamental level of historical experience, and culture its principal expression. As Georges Duby has put it:

男性的行为与其说是受其真实状况的影响,不如说是受其通常对自身状况的虚假认知的影响,受那些作为文化产物、与物质现实仅有部分相似之处的行为模式的影响。36

Men’s [sic] behaviour is shaped not so much by their real condition as by their usually untruthful image of that condition, by behavioural models which are cultural productions bearing only a partial resemblance to material realities.36

到了20世纪90年代,对社会范式的攻击主要源于文本理论,它抨击了表征的指称概念。从否定文本的真实意义到瓦解既定的社会身份,这之间只有一步之遥,因为身份的维系,如果不是基于共同的语言和符号,又基于什么呢?阶级、种族和民族都失去了其“硬性”的客观特征,沦为不稳定的论述。社会史学家曾诉诸“经验”,但经验的基础地位如今受到质疑,理由是经验在语言出现之前并不存在。文化本身被视为一种建构,而非现实的反映。现代主义对“宏大叙事”的攻击,通过否定活跃的社会身份在时间长河中的持久性,完成了对社会范式的彻底摧毁。剩下的只是对表征的研究——意义是如何建构的,而不是过去人们做了什么。文化史是这一转变的主要受益者。历史思维之所以如此,是因为它优先考虑语言,使得意义和表征问题比其他任何因素都更为重要。其后果可能令人不安。例如,人们通常认为19世纪意大利历史的主旋律是复兴运动——旨在将意大利统一在意大利统治下的运动(最终于1870年实现)。长期以来,人们将其视为一系列政治和军事行动的研究对象,这些行动以魅力非凡的加里波第及其在意大利许多地区动员民众支持为主导。如今,人们对复兴运动的研究依然不减,但在近期的著作中,研究重点已从政治和军事层面转移开来。意大利民族情感现在被视为一种本质上的文化现象(如同歌剧和小说),加里波第则被指责为自我塑造的传奇人物——一个“虚构的英雄”,而非广受赞誉的伟大将领。意大利的统一变成了一个幻想。38

By the 1990s the main impetus for the attack on the social paradigm came from textual theory, with its assault on referential notions of representation. It proved to be a short step from rejecting authentic meaning in texts to fracturing accepted social identities, since what does identity depend on if not a shared language and shared symbols? Class, race and nation all lost their ‘hard’ objective character and became no more than unstable discourses. Social historians had appealed to ‘experience’, but the foundational status of experience was now questioned on the grounds that it had no existence prior to language.37 Culture itself was seen as a construction, rather than a reflection of reality. The Postmodernist attack on ‘grand narratives’ completed the job of demolition, by discrediting the persistence of active social identities over time. What is left is the study of representation – of how meanings are constructed, not what people in the past did. Cultural history is the principal beneficiary of this shift in historical thinking because the priority it gives to language makes questions of meaning and representation more important than anything else. The consequences can be unsettling. For example, the dominant theme of Italian history in the nineteenth century is usually taken to be the Risorgimento – the movement to unite Italy under Italian rule (finally achieved in 1870). It has long been studied as a series of political and military initiatives, dominated by the charismatic figure of Garibaldi and his mobilization of popular support in many parts of Italy. The Risorgimento is no less studied today, but in recent books the focus has shifted away from the political and military drama. Italian national feeling is now viewed as an essentially cultural phenomenon (as in opera and novels), and Garibaldi is reproached as the maker of his own legend – an ‘invented hero’ rather than the great general of popular renown. Italian unity becomes a chimera.38

文化议程的益处和局限性

The benefits and limitations of the cultural agenda

如果走向极端,文化转向显然会削弱历史学家的大部分传统研究议程。当“表征”被视为历史研究唯一合法的领域时,这个问题就显得尤为突出。帕特里克·乔伊斯(Patrick Joyce)一篇题为《社会史的终结?》的文章正是鼓吹这种观点。 39 他指的是,以E·P·汤普森(E.P. Thompson)为代表的阶级史和阶级关系史不再有效;例如,乔伊斯在自己的著作中就从文化而非经济的角度分析了工业劳动,从而将其从劳动史中剥离出来。 40尽管乔伊斯的论证技巧高超,但他的观点并未得到历史学家的认可。这相当于接受了后现代主义对历史学的通常批判。大多数历史学家都不愿看到他们的研究范围被简化为话语的不确定维度,文化史学家也不例外。认真对待表征并不一定意味着贬低其他一切。文化议程也并不意味着对历史真相持极简主义立场。大多数从事历史研究的学者都承认文本理论在丰富历史学科方面所发挥的积极作用,但并不接受其破坏性的认识论。

If taken to extremes, it is clear that the cultural turn would undermine much of the traditional agenda of historians. The issue is starkly posed when representation is proposed as the only legitimate field of historical study. An article by Patrick Joyce advocating just this is provocatively titled ‘The end of social history?’39 By this he means that the history of class and class relations in the mould of E.P. Thompson no longer has validity; in his own writing Joyce has, for example, analysed the subject of industrial work in cultural rather than economic terms, thus detaching it from labour history.40 For all its rhetorical skill, Joyce’s position has found little favour with historians. It amounts to an acceptance of the Postmodernist charge-sheet against history as usually practised. Most of the profession is little inclined to see the scope of their work pared down to the indeterminate dimensions of discourse, and this goes for the majority of cultural historians too. Taking representation seriously does not necessarily mean disparaging everything else. Nor does a cultural agenda signal a minimalist position on the issue of historical truth. Most historians working in the field acknowledge the positive ways in which textual theory has enriched the subject, without taking on board its destructive epistemology.

然而,侧重点的差异依然存在。阶级冲突史学家与分析阶级冲突史的学者所做的事情有所不同。将劳资关系视为受游戏规则约束的仪式;撰写传统政治史与关注民族认同的文化不稳定性得出不同的结果;等等。这种差异的关键在于理论。对于第一类历史学家而言,他们的研究对象通常因其在社会叙事中的地位而具有吸引力,而这种社会叙事又通过参照社会变迁的动态理论(通常是马克思主义理论)来解读。另一方面,第二类历史学家则主要关注语境化——仿佛在单一层面上建立文化联系,往往很少关注历史随时间推移而发生的变化。关于心智、文本和文化本身的理论为这项工作提供了概念基础,它们也旨在丰富语境理解,而非阐明历史进程。正如第一章所述,我们再次看到历史写作中解释模式和再创造模式之间的张力。社会理论延续了启蒙运动设定的议程,即解读人类历史的走向;事件和进程的意义取决于它们在更宏大的叙事中所处的位置。文化理论继承了历史主义者对过去固有陌生性的强调,以及对诠释过去意义所需智力努力的重视。本章和第八章描述了两种截然不同的历史观,它们之间的冲突在今天看来极具时代特色。但它们所反映的张力却与历史学科本身一样古老。

Yet the difference of emphasis remains. The historian of class conflict is doing something different from one who analyses industrial relations as a ritual bound by the conventions of a game; writing a traditional political history produces different results from a focus on the cultural instability of national identity; and so on. This difference is crucially one of theory. For the first group of historians, the subject of their research usually holds interest because of its place in a social narrative, which in turn is interpreted by reference to a dynamic theory of social change, often Marxist. The second group, on the other hand, is essentially interested in contextualizing – in making cultural connections within a single plane, as it were, often with scant attention to changes over time. Theories of the mind, of the text and of culture itself provide the conceptual underpinning for this work, and they too serve to enrich contextual understandings rather than illuminate historical process. Once again, as in Chapter 1, we see the tension in historical writing between the explanatory mode and the re-creative mode. Social theory continues the agenda set in the Enlightenment of interpreting the direction of human history; events and processes are deemed significant in terms of the place they hold in a more extended narrative. Cultural theory takes up the historicists’ emphasis on the inherent strangeness of the past, and the need for intellectual effort to interpret its meaning. This chapter and Chapter 8 have described two quite different kinds of history, and the conflict between them is very much of our time. But the tension they reflect is as old as the discipline itself.

弗洛伊德和精神分析

Freud and psychoanalysis

奥地利神经学家西格蒙德·弗洛伊德(1856-1939)发展了精神分析疗法。在这种疗法中,患者首先被放松,然后被鼓励自由地谈论他们的感受和记忆,这些记忆往往可以追溯到童年时期。他在1900年出版的著作《梦的解析》中提出,梦境会揭示出那些被压抑在潜意识中的痛苦和创伤。他对性欲和性冲动的发展追溯到童年早期的观点引发了激烈的争议,其中包括俄狄浦斯情结。俄狄浦斯情结得名于希腊神话中那个在不知情的情况下弑父娶母的人物,在这种情结下,男孩会强烈地渴望占有自己的母亲,同时又害怕父亲会阉割自己。弗洛伊德认为,人的心理分为三个部分:本我,代表着遗传的、先天的本能;自我,代表着……代表个体对自身在世界中位置的感知;而超我则反映了从父母、学校教育或个人经历中习得的更广泛的社会价值观和理想。瑞士精神病学家卡尔·古斯塔夫·荣格识别出不同的人格类型,特别是内向型外向型,并提出了“集体潜意识”理论,即特定文化群体成员共享的那些隐藏的态度和恐惧。

The Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) developed the process of psychoanalysis, whereby patients were first relaxed and then encouraged to speak freely about their feelings and memories, often going far back to childhood. His 1900 work The Interpretation of Dreams argued that dreams bring out mental pain and trauma that is otherwise repressed in the mind. There was fierce controversy over his tracing of the development of sexual feelings and desires to early childhood, including the Oedipus complex, named after the figure in Greek mythology who unknowingly kills his father and marries his own mother, by which a young boy experiences a powerful desire to possess his mother and a fear that his father might retaliate by castrating him. Freud held that the mind is divided into three parts: the id, which represents inherited, innate instinct; the ego, which represents the individual’s sense of his or her own self within the world; and the super-ego, which reflects those wider social values and ideals that have been learned from parents or through schooling or experience. The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung identified different types of personality, notably the introvert and the extrovert, and formulated the theory of the ‘collective subconscious’, those hidden attitudes and fears that are shared by the members of a particular cultural grouping.

弗洛伊德的理论对艺术家和作家产生了巨大的启发,尤其在美国广受欢迎,以至于20世纪后期的精神分析在美国几乎发展成一个产业。尽管近年来弗洛伊德理论的基础受到了越来越多的质疑,但公众对心理学和心理运作的兴趣依然浓厚。

Freud’s theories proved a major inspiration to artists and writers and were particularly popular in the United States, whereby the late twentieth century psychoanalysis had become a virtual industry. Although the basis for Freud’s theories has come under increasing attack in recent years, public interest in psychology and the working of the mind remains as strong as ever.

延伸阅读

Further reading

Simon Gunn《历史与文化理论》,朗文出版​​社,2006 年。

Simon Gunn, History and Cultural Theory, Longman, 2006.

Sarah BarberCorinna M. Peniston-Bird(编),《超越文本的历史:学生接触替代资料的指南》,Routledge,2009 年。

Sarah Barber & Corinna M. Peniston-Bird (eds), History Beyond the Text: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources, Routledge, 2009.

彼得·伯克目击者,Reaktion,2001。

Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing, Reaktion, 2001.

Marnie Hughes-Warrington《历史走进电影:通过电影学习历史》,Routledge出版社,2007年。

Marnie Hughes-Warrington, History Goes to the Movies: Studying History on Film, Routledge, 2007.

Karen Harvey(编),《历史与物质文化》,Routledge出版社,2009年。

Karen Harvey (ed.), History and Material Culture, Routledge, 2009.

Peter Gay《弗洛伊德与历史学家》,牛津大学出版社,1985 年。

Peter Gay, Freud for Historians, Oxford University Press, 1985.

TG Ashplant,《历史写作中的精神分析》,《历史工作坊杂志》 ,第 26 卷,1988 年。

T.G. Ashplant, ‘Psychoanalysis in historical writing’, History Workshop Journal, XXVI, 1988.

Peter Burke《什么是文化史?》,第 2 版,Polity Press,2008 年。

Peter Burke, What Is Cultural History?, 2nd edn, Polity Press, 2008.

Miri Rubin, “什么是现在的文化史?”,载于 David Cannadine(编),《什么是现在的历史?》,Palgrave,2002 年。

Miri Rubin, ‘What is cultural history now?’, in David Cannadine (ed.), What is History Now?, Palgrave, 2002.

Lynn Hunt(编),《新文化史》,加州大学出版社,1989 年。

Lynn Hunt (ed.), The New Cultural History, California University Press, 1989.

Robert Darnton《大猫屠杀及法国文化史上的其他事件》,Allen Lane出版社,1984年。

Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, Allen Lane, 1984.

笔记

Notes

  1   Raymond Williams,《关键词》,Fontana 出版社,1983 年,第 87 页。

  1  Raymond Williams, Keywords, Fontana 1983, p. 87.

  2   Peter Burke,《近代早期欧洲的大众文化》,Temple Smith 出版社,1978 年,第 270 页。

  2  Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, Temple Smith, 1978, p. 270.

  3   Carolyn Steedman,“文化、文化研究和历史学家”,载 Lawrence Grossberg 等人(编),《文化研究》,Routledge,1992 年,第 617 页。

  3  Carolyn Steedman, ‘Culture, cultural studies and the historians’, in Lawrence Grossberg et al. (eds), Cultural Studies, Routledge, 1992, p. 617.

  4   Erwin Panofsky,《图像学研究》,Harper & Row,1962 年,第 6 章

  4  Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology, Harper & Row, 1962, ch. 6.

  5   TJ Clark,《人民的形象:古斯塔夫·库尔贝与1848年革命》,泰晤士与哈德逊出版社,1973年。

  5  T.J. Clark, The Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution, Thames & Hudson, 1973.

  6   Stephen Bann,《在标志之下》,密歇根大学出版社,1994 年,第 122 页。

  6  Stephen Bann, Under the Sign, University of Michigan Press, 1994, p. 122.

  7  彼得·伯克,《目击者》,Reaktion,2001 年。

  7  Peter Burke, Eyewitnessing, Reaktion, 2001.

  8   Karen Harvey(编),《历史与物质文化》,Routledge出版社,2009年。

  8  Karen Harvey (ed.), History and Material Culture, Routledge, 2009.

  9   Suzanne Lewis,《贝叶挂毯中的权力修辞》,剑桥大学出版社,1999 年,第 xiii 页。

  9  Suzanne Lewis, The Rhetoric of Power in the Bayeux Tapestry, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p. xiii.

10   RW Scribner,《为了普通百姓》,第 2 版,牛津大学出版社,1995 年。路德的引文在第 244 页。

10  R.W. Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, 1995. The quotation from Luther is on p. 244.

11  伯克,《近代早期欧洲的大众文化》

11  Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe.

12   John MacKenzie(编),《宣传与帝国》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,1986 年;Bernard Porter,《心不在焉的帝国主义者》,牛津大学出版社,2004 年。

12  John MacKenzie (ed.), Propaganda and Empire, Manchester University Press, 1986; Bernard Porter, The Absent-Minded Imperialists, Oxford University Press, 2004.

13   Vanessa Toulmin 等人(编),《米切尔和肯扬的失落世界:爱德华时代的英国电影》,英国电影协会,2004 年。

13  Vanessa Toulmin et al. (eds), The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon: Edwardian Britain on Film, BFI, 2004.

14   Abigail Solomon-Godeau,《码头摄影》,明尼苏达大学出版社,1991 年,第 177-179 页。

14  Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Photography at the Dock, Minnesota University Press, 1991 pp. 177–9.

15   Robert A. Rosenstone,《电影中的历史/电影与历史》,朗文出版​​社,2006 年,第 70 页。

15  Robert A. Rosenstone, History on Film/Film on History, Longman, 2006, p. 70.

16   Ross McKibbin,《英国的阶级与文化,1918-1951》,牛津大学出版社,1998 年,第 419 页。

16  Ross McKibbin, Classes and Cultures in England, 1918–51, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 419.

17  同上,第 431-5 页。

17  Ibid., pp. 431–5.

18   John Ramsden,《轰炸鲁尔水坝记》,IB Tauris,2002 年。

18  John Ramsden, The Dam Busters, I.B. Tauris, 2002.

19   László Moholy-Nagy,引自 Derak Sayer,“照片:静止的图像”,载于 Sarah Barber 和 Corinna M. Peniston-Bird(编),《超越文本的历史:学生接触另类资料的指南》,Routledge,2009 年,第 49 页。

19  László Moholy-Nagy, quoted in Derak Sayer, ‘The photograph: the still image’, in Sarah Barber and Corinna M. Peniston-Bird (eds), History Beyond the Text: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources, Routledge, 2009, p. 49.

20   Roy Porter,《心灵的枷锁:从复辟时期到摄政时期英国的疯狂史》,阿斯隆,1987年,px

20  Roy Porter, Mind Forg’d Manacles: A History of Madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency, Athlone, 1987, p. x.

21   Lucien Febvre,《历史与心理学》,1938 年,转载于 Peter Burke(编),《一种新的历史》,Routledge & Kegan Paul,1973 年。

21  Lucien Febvre, ‘History and psychology’, 1938, reprinted in Peter Burke (ed.), A New Kind of History, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973.

22   Robert Mandrou,《现代法国导论,1500–1640:历史心理学论文》,Arnold出版社,1975年(法文版1961年),第26页。

22  Robert Mandrou, Introduction to Modern France, 1500–1640: An Essay in Historical Psychology, Arnold, 1975 (French edition 1961), p. 26.

23   Bruce Mazlish,《詹姆斯·斯图亚特·密尔和约翰·斯图亚特·密尔:十九世纪的父子》,Hutchinson出版社,1975年。

23  Bruce Mazlish, James and John Stuart Mill: Father and Son in the Nineteenth Century, Hutchinson, 1975.

24   Peter Gay,《弗洛伊德与历史学家》,牛津大学出版社,1985 年,第 75 页。

24  Peter Gay, Freud for Historians, Oxford University Press, 1985, p. 75.

25   Michael P. Rogin,《父亲与孩子:安德鲁·杰克逊与美国印第安人的征服》,Knopf出版社,1975年。

25  Michael P. Rogin, Fathers and Children: Andrew Jackson and the Subjection of the American Indian, Knopf, 1975.

26   David E. Stannard,《缩小的历史:论弗洛伊德和心理史的失败》,牛津大学出版社,1980 年,第 30 页。

26  David E. Stannard, Shrinking History: On Freud and the Failure of Psychohistory, Oxford University Press, 1980, p. 30.

27   Kevin Sharpe,《早期斯图亚特王朝时期英国的政治与思想》,弗朗西斯·平特出版社,1989 年,第 1 章

27  Kevin Sharpe, Politics and Ideas in Early Stuart England, Frances Pinter, 1989, ch. 1.

28   Keith Baker,“论法国大革命的意识形态起源问题”,载于 Dominick La Capra 和 Steven L. Kaplan(编),《现代欧洲思想史:重新评估和新视角》,康奈尔大学出版社,1982 年,第 204 页。

28  Keith Baker, ‘On the problem of the ideological origins of the French Revolution’, in Dominick La Capra and Steven L. Kaplan (eds), Modern European Intellectual History: Reappraisals and New Perspectives, Cornell University Press, 1982, p. 204.

29   Raphael Samuel(编),《爱国主义:英国民族认同的形成与瓦解》,3 卷,Routledge,1989 年。

29  Raphael Samuel (ed.), Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of the British National Identity, 3 vols, Routledge, 1989.

30   Natalie Zemon Davis,《档案中的小说》,Polity出版社,1987年,第4页。

30  Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives, Polity Press, 1987, p. 4.

31  克利福德·格尔茨,《文化的解释》,哈钦森出版社,1975 年,第 1 章

31  Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, Hutchinson, 1975, ch. 1.

32  克利福德·格尔茨,《地方知识:解释人类学的进一步论文集》,丰塔纳出版社,1983 年。

32  Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, Fontana, 1983.

33   Natalie Zemon Davis,《早期现代法国的社会与文化》,Duckworth出版社,1975年,第十六至十七页。

33  Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, Duckworth, 1975, pp. xvi–xvii.

34   Robert Darnton,《大猫屠杀和法国文化史上的其他事件》,Allen Lane,1984 年,第 262 页。

34  Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, Allen Lane, 1984, p. 262.

35   Raphael Samuel,《解读符号:II》,历史工作坊杂志XXX,1992 年,第 235-238 页,第 243 页。

35  Raphael Samuel, ‘Reading the signs: II’, History Workshop Journal, XXX, 1992, pp. 235–8, 243.

36   Georges Duby,“社会史中的意识形态”,载于 Jacques Le Goff 和 Pierre Nora(编),《建构过去:历史方法论论文集》,剑桥大学出版社,1985 年,第 151 页。

36  Georges Duby, ‘Ideologies in social history’, in Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora (eds), Constructing the Past: Essays in Historical Methodology, Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 151.

37   Joan Scott,《经验的证据》,《批判性探究》 ,第十七卷,1991 年,第 773-97 页。

37  Joan Scott, ‘The evidence of experience’, Critical Inquiry, XVII, 1991, pp. 773–97.

38  例如参见 Lucy Riall,《加里波第:英雄的诞生》,耶鲁大学出版社,2007 年。

38  See for example Lucy Riall, Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero, Yale University Press, 2007.

39   Patrick Joyce,“社会史的终结?”,《社会史》XX,1995 年,第 73-91 页。

39  Patrick Joyce, ‘The end of social history?’, Social History, XX, 1995, pp. 73–91.

40   Patrick Joyce(编),《工作的历史意义》,剑桥大学出版社,1987 年。

40  Patrick Joyce (ed.), The Historical Meaning of Work, Cambridge University Press, 1987.

第十章

Chapter Ten

性别史与后殖民史

Gender history and postcolonial history

本章探讨了历史研究领域一些最为显著的拓展。五十年前,女性被忽视,第三世界国家的历史研究也局限于狭隘的西方视角。而如今,女性史和性别史被视为理解过去的核心。与此同时,后殖民历史学家不仅从“底层视角”构建非洲和亚洲的历史,而且坚持认为,必须从被殖民者的视角重新审视前殖民列强的历史。

This chapter examines some of the most dramatic extensions of history’s subject matter. Fifty years ago women were ignored, and Third World countries were treated from a narrowly Western perspective. Today, women’s and gender history is regarded as central to the understanding of the past. Meanwhile postcolonial historians are not only developing histories of Africa and Asia ‘from below’, but are insisting that the history of the former colonial powers be reassessed from the perspective of the colonized.

P将性别史和后殖民史放在同一章节中探讨,或许会让人觉得有些奇怪——甚至有贬低之嫌,因为它暗示女性和第三世界社会可以被简单地归为边缘化的附加项。但我对二者的处理方式应该能够消除这种印象。之所以将它们放在一起讨论,是因为它们为历史学家带来了相似的机遇和挑战。两者都致力于让此前在历史记录中被忽略的庞大群体发出声音;而在这个过程中,两者都对历史学家的工作提出了挑战,批判了他们的方法,甚至质疑了他们实践的有效性。女性史和后殖民史不仅代表着历史研究范围的逐步扩展,它们还有可能改变整个学科的性质。

Placing gender history and postcolonial history in the same chapter may seem an odd procedure – even a demeaning one if it suggests that women and Third World societies can be lumped together as marginal add-ons. My treatment of them should dispel any such impression. The reason for considering them together is that they raise comparable opportunities and problems for historians. Both aspire to give a voice to huge constituencies that previously had no place in the historical record; and in doing so, both have thrown up challenges to what historians do, critiquing their methods and even the validity of their practice. Women’s history and postcolonial history not only represent an incremental enlargement of the range of historical study; they have the potential to modify the character of the discipline as a whole.

I

女性史

Women’s history

当女性史的概念在20世纪70年代首次形成时,这样的结果似乎极不可能实现。正如第一章所述,女性史是妇女解放运动的一个特征。它是女权主义广泛战略的一部分,旨在挑战学术知识中根深蒂固的男性中心主义假设。女性史的先驱们不仅对过去女性的生活充满好奇,她们还认识到,重拾这些生活对于当今女性意识的全面发展至关重要。对女性日常生活的研究,凸显了她们对男性的从属地位,从而激发了部分必要的政治能量。历史为父权制长达几个世纪的存在提供了最有力的证据,而对父权制程度的认识是提高女性意识的核心。政治能量的另一来源是那些采取行动反抗当时政治和社会压迫的女性的生活。像爱德华时代英国的妇女参政论者这样的明确女权主义组织显然是关注的焦点。更令人惊讶的是……研究发现,女性在欧文主义宪章运动等组织中发挥了重要作用,而这些组织历来被认为是男性的专属领地。¹此类研究表明,女性不仅拥有独立的历史脉络,而且是“主流”历史不可或缺的一部分。

That outcome seemed highly unlikely when women’s history was first formulated during the 1970s. As described in Chapter 1, women’s history emerged as a feature of Women’s Liberation. It was part of a broad feminist strategy to contest the masculinist assumptions of academic knowledge. The pioneers of women’s history were not only curious about the lives of women in the past; they understood that reclaiming those lives was essential to a fully formed women’s consciousness in the present. Part of the required political energy was generated by studies of women’s daily lives that highlighted their subordination to men. History provided some of the most compelling evidence for the centuries-long existence of patriarchy, and awareness of the extent of patriarchy was central to consciousness-raising. The other source of political energy was the lives of those women who had taken action to resist the political and social oppression of their day. Explicitly feminist organizations, like the suffragists and suffragettes of Edwardian Britain, were an obvious focus. More surprising was the role found to have been played by women in organizations like Owenism and Chartism, which have gone down in history as masculine preserves.1 The effect of such studies was to demonstrate that women had a history, not only in a separate strand, but as an integral element of ‘mainstream’ history.

欧文主义

Owenism

罗伯特·欧文(1771-1858)是一位威尔士实业家,他在苏格兰新拉纳克经营纺纱厂时,尝试以人道主义和合作的方式经营,这促使他创立了代表全体技术工人的全国联合工会。1834年,多塞特郡托尔普德尔的一群农场工人因宣誓效忠该工会而被流放到澳大利亚,工会也因此消亡。然而,十年后,欧文的理想在兰开夏郡罗奇代尔的一群工会成员身上得以复兴。他们创立了第一个合作社运动,所有成员将各自的会费投入中央基金,用于维持合作社商店的运营,使成员能够以低于其他地方的价格购买商品。如今,合作社商店仍然在商业街上随处可见。

Robert Owen (1771–1858) was a Welsh industrialist whose experiments in running his spinning mill at New Lanark in Scotland along humanitarian and co-operative lines led him to found the Grand National Consolidated Trades’ Union to represent the entire skilled working class. The union was killed off in 1834 when a group of farm labourers at Tolpuddle in Dorset was transported to Australia for swearing an oath of loyalty to it. However, Owen’s ideals were revived ten years later by a group of trade unionists in Rochdale, Lancashire, who founded the first Co-Operative movement, in which all members would sink their subscription into a central fund, which would be used to maintain a Co-Operative shop that could sell goods to members at lower prices than elsewhere. Co-Op shops are still found on the high street today.

宪章运动

Chartism

19 世纪 30 年代和 40 年代的工人阶级政治运动。它的名称来源于 1838 年起草的《人民宪章》,该宪章提出了一套全面的议会改革建议。

A working-class political movement in the 1830s and 1840s. It derived its name from the People’s Charter, drawn up in 1838, which laid out a comprehensive set of proposals for the reform of Parliament.

20世纪60年代末70年代初,妇女解放运动促成了女权主义历史观的兴起,这种历史观力求展现女性的贡献,以及她们在过去男性主导的社会中遭受的种种压迫。(Corbis/Bettmann)

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Women’s Liberation movement led to the development of a feminist approach to history, which sought to bring out the contribution of women and the many ways in which they were held down by the male-dominated societies of the past. (Corbis/Bettmann)

在收集支持女权主义目标的历史资料的过程中,女性史学家触及了几个既有历史分支的关注点。起初,她们在政治史领域的影响最小,因为直到20世纪,女性在政治体系中都没有地位。女性史的主要影响体现在社会史领域。这显然是女权主义优先关注普通女性生活的结果,而当时的社会史在为其普遍存在的以男性为中心的视角辩护方面尤其薄弱。女性史对社会的重视体现在其对劳动史的关注上。研究自工业革命以来女性就业的兴衰,为理解资本主义的运作提供了一个富有启发性的角度——无论是关注早期兰开夏郡棉纺厂的女纺纱工和女织工,还是关注第一次世界大战期间代替男性上前线的军需工人

In the course of assembling historical material supportive of feminist objectives, women’s historians touched the concerns of several established branches of history. Initially their impact was least in the field of political history, since until the twentieth century women had no standing in political systems. The principal impact of women’s history was on social history. This was an obvious consequence of the priority given by feminism to ordinary women’s lives, and the existing social history was on particularly weak ground in justifying its prevalent male-centred perspective. One example of the social emphasis of women’s history was its engagement with labour history. Accounting for the ebb and flow of women’s employment since the Industrial Revolution proved to be an illuminating angle on the workings of capitalism – whether the focus was on female spinners and weavers in the early Lancashire cotton mills or the munitions workers who substituted for men at the front during the First World War.2

在家庭领域,女性史的社会影响最为显著。20世纪60年代的历史学家们主要围绕家庭规模和生育率展开了一场较为狭隘的讨论,且大多采用定量分析方法。一些学者则从教诲文学的角度研究家庭——这些文学作品代代相传,旨在指导夫妻如何相处以及如何养育子女。而对女性的新关注则将目光聚焦于家庭内部权力、养育和依赖等动态关系。各种定性资料——法庭记录、日记、信件——被广泛搜集,以寻找证据,而非统计常态,而是特定家庭的真实生活体验。尤其引人注目的是,维多利亚时代家庭虔诚的“天使母亲”形象背后隐藏的真实面貌被揭开:她比人们普遍认为的更加独立,更热衷于家庭以外的慈善事业,也更容易与丈夫发生冲突。4由于这项工作和其他工作,整个私人领域——与传统历史的公共世界截然不同——都被纳入了历史理解的范围。

It is with regard to the family that the social impact of women’s history has been greatest. Historians in the 1960s had conducted a rather narrow debate about household size and levels of fertility, mostly using quantitative analysis.3 Other scholars had studied the family through the lens of didactic literature – the homilies that have been written in every generation to advise couples how to behave towards each other and how to raise their children. The new focus on women drew attention to the internal dynamics of the family in terms of power, nurture and dependence. A variety of qualitative sources – court records, diaries, letters – were scoured for evidence, not of the statistical norm, but of life as it was actually experienced in specific families. Particularly striking has been the uncovering of the reality behind the ornamental ‘angel mother’ of Victorian family piety: she was more independent, more given to philanthropic work outside the home, and more likely to be in conflict with her husband than the popular stereotype suggests.4 As a result of this and other work, the whole realm of the private – as distinct from the public world of conventional history – is being brought within the scope of historical understanding.

天使般的母亲

angel mother

在维多利亚时代的文学和流行文化中,经常可以看到这样一位母亲的形象:美丽、慈爱、尽职尽责、顺从。

The image, often found in Victorian literature and popular culture, of a mother who is at once beautiful, caring, dutiful and obedient.

早期现代案例研究

An early modern case-study

奥尔文·赫夫顿的《她面前的前景》 (1995)堪称对这一时期女性历史的最佳概括。这部著作对1500年至1800年间的欧洲女性进行了极其广泛而深入的考察。它围绕女性生命周期中的关键阶段展开,从少女时期到婚姻、为人母,再到丧偶。书中特别关注那些游离于传统人生轨迹之外的女性——单身女性、修女、性工作者等等。赫夫顿的这部著作是一部宏大的社会史,它将宏观的概括与生动的个体生活案例巧妙地融合在一起。从女性史的角度来审视,《她面前的前景》最重要的意义在于,它全面掌握了这一时期女性所处的诸多历史背景,并巧妙地将其融入到分析之中。这一点在宗教方面尤为明显:宗教改革及其对基督教各分支的深远影响得到了重点阐述,这让许多读者意识到他们与近代早期先辈之间的历史距离。

The book that best sums up this phase of women’s history is Olwen Hufton’s The Prospect Before Her (1995), an extraordinarily wide-ranging and learned survey of women in Europe from 1500 to 1800. It is structured around the defining phases of women’s life cycle from girlhood through marriage and motherhood to widowhood. Special attention is given to those who stood outside the conventional life story – single women, nuns, sex workers, and so on. Hufton’s book is social history on a grand scale, in which large generalizations are combined with vivid incidents in individual lives. Viewed critically as a piece of women’s history, the most important point about The Prospect Before Her is that the many historical contexts in which women lived during this period are fully mastered and deftly interwoven with the analysis. This is particularly true of religion: the Reformation and its profound consequences for all branches of Christianity are highlighted, in a way which for many readers brings home the historical distance between them and their Early Modern forebears.

赫夫顿的作品也引出了读者群体的问题。早期女性史的研究对象不仅是女性,而且是女权主义者,因为她们寻求的是一种具有政治意义的历史解读。《她面前的前景》则更多地面向广大历史学家。它不仅将女性的过往经历置于历史语境中,更将这些经历与当时更为人熟知的社会主题(如贫困、家务劳动和宗教信仰)巧妙地融合在一起。因此,它对早期现代欧洲社会史做出了重要贡献。在这方面,赫夫顿与20世纪80年代和90年代涌现的年轻一代女性史学家不谋而合。她们与其说是致力于提升女权主义意识,不如说是致力于改变历史研究的框架。

Hufton’s work also raises the question of audience. The first forays in women’s history had been written for a readership that was not only female but feminist, in that it was looking for a politically relevant reading of the past. The Prospect Before Her is addressed more to the generality of historians. It not only contextualizes women’s past experience; it makes that experience manifestly part of the more familiar themes of the period, like poverty, domestic service and religious vocation. It is thus a major contribution to the social history of early modern Europe. In this respect Hufton was in tune with the younger generation of women’s historians who were coming to the fore during the 1980s and 1990s. They were less interested in raising feminist consciousness than in changing the terms on which the study of history was pursued.

告别“女性历史”

Moving on from ‘women’s history’

作为一门成熟的历史研究,女性史如今呈现出三大原则,这三大原则共同为其融入主流历史铺平了道路。首先,“女性”不再被视为一个单一的、没有差异的社会范畴。阶级、种族以及关于性别差异的文化观念都对女性史产生了巨大的影响。女性史对女性的认知方式——以及她们自身的认知——都产生了影响,而大多数历史研究关注的是特定群体而非泛指女性。这增强了女性史对社会史的意义,因为这些区别在社会史中至关重要。其次,正如“女性”这一范畴已被细分一样,男性对女性统一且持续压迫的观念也被打破。“父权制”一词一直受到批评,因为它暗示性别差异是人类社会分层的基本原则,存在于所有时期,因此“超越”历史;它声称可以解释一切,但实际上却什么也解释不了。“父权制”一词仍然可以用来指代家庭中的性别等级制度,尤其是在男性控制某种形式的家庭生产的情况下,例如前工业时代的欧洲。但历史记录表明,男女关系中压迫、反抗、妥协和融合的程度存在巨大差异,历史学家的任务是解释这种差异,而不是将其归入普遍存在的性压迫原则之下。5

As a mature historical practice women’s history is today characterized by three principles which together open the way for its integration into mainstream history. First, ‘woman’ is no longer seen as a single undifferentiated social category. Class, race and cultural beliefs about sexual difference have all had an immense influence on how women are perceived – and also on how they perceive themselves – and most historical work relates to specific groups rather than womanhood in general. This enhances the bearing of women’s history on social history, where these distinctions are central. Second, just as the category of ‘woman’ has been disaggregated, so too has the notion of a uniform and constant oppression by men. The term ‘patriarchy’ has been criticized as implying that sexual difference is the fundamental principle of stratification in human society, present in all periods and thus ‘outside’ history; by claiming to explain everything, it explains nothing. ‘Patriarchy’ can still usefully be used to denote sexual hierarchy in the household, particularly where men control a form of domestic production, as they did in pre-industrial Europe. But the record of the past shows immense variety in the extent of oppression, resistance, accommodation and convergence in relations between men and women, and the task of the historian is to explain this variation rather than subsume it under a universal principle of sexual oppression.5

第三,也是最具挑战性的一点,女性史的研究范围日益扩大,将男性史纳入其中:这里指的并非传统意义上无性别、独立自主的男性,而是与人类另一半——女性——相关的男性。这意味着,男性在历史上被视为儿子和丈夫,而在公共领域,男性对女性的排斥不再被视为理所当然,而成为需要探究的问题。正如简·刘易斯所言,

Third and most challenging of all, women’s history has increasingly taken the history of men within its scope: not men in their traditional guise of genderless autonomous beings, but men in relation to the other half of humanity. This means that men are considered historically as sons and husbands, while in the public sphere men’s exclusion of women becomes a matter for investigation, instead of being taken for granted. As Jane Lewis has put it,

只有当我们有意识地尝试理解男性世界的整体结构和男性气质的建构时,我们对性别/性体系的理解才有可能是完整的。6

our understanding of the sex/gender system can never hope to be complete until we have a deliberate attempt to understand the total fabric of men’s worlds and the construction of masculinity.6

最后这句话代表着一项非常广泛的历史议程。几个世纪以来,历史研究或许一直是男性的垄断领域,但对男性气质的理解却并非其中的一部分。得益于这方面的研究,我们现在理所当然地认为,例如,第一次世界大战中那些在战壕里浴血奋战的士兵,他们的动力不仅来自于国王和国家的召唤,也来自于学校、青少年文学和青年组织灌输的男性气质准则。7

That last phrase stands for a very extensive historical agenda. History may have been a male monopoly for centuries, but understanding masculinity was not part of the project. As a result of work in this area, we now take for granted, for example, that the soldiers who manned the trenches in the First World War were motivated not just by the call of king and country, but by a code of masculinity instilled by school, juvenile literature and youth organizations.7

II

性别史及两性关系

Gender history and relations between the sexes

女性史的这些新方向意味着名称的改变:性别史标志着超越女性视角、革新所有历史书写方式的愿望。它绝非女性史领域唯一的潮流,但却为整个学科带来了最大的希望。在目前的用法中,“性别”指的是性差异的社会组织。它体现了一种假设,即大多数被认为是自然(或上帝赋予)的性差异实际上是社会和文化建构的,因此必须被理解为历史进程的结果。(当然,正是这种对自然与文化的混淆,使得性别分层如此根深蒂固,并导致它在许多历史记录中被忽视。)性别史的关注点与其说是某一性别的困境,不如说是两性关系的整个领域。这一领域不仅包括婚姻和性等显而易见的接触点,还包括所有社会关系和政治制度。在这种观点看来,这些关系和制度在不同程度上都受到性别结构的影响:例如,女性被排斥,男性和女性特质被极化等等。男性和女性一样,都深受性别建构的影响。男性的社会权力及其“男性”特质只能被理解为性别体系的组成部分:它们既非“自然”也非恒定不变,而是由与女性不断变化的关系所定义。这一视角构成了近期关于“男子气概”一词自近代早期以来曲折演变的论述以及家庭史最佳著作的基础。8因为只有从关系的角度才能正确理解两性,所以性别史在概念上具备了全面涵盖社会层面的能力,并能成为任何严肃的社会结构和社会变迁理论的重要组成部分。

These new directions in women’s history entail a change of name: gender history signals the aspiration to move beyond an exclusively women’s perspective to modify the writing of all history. It is by no means the only current within women’s history, but it holds out the greatest promise for the discipline as a whole. In current usage ‘gender’ means the social organization of sexual difference. It embodies the assumption that most of what passes for natural (or God-given) sexual difference is in fact socially and culturally constructed, and must therefore be understood as the outcome of historical process. (Of course it is that very confusion between nature and culture that has given stratification by gender such staying power, and has caused it to escape notice in much of the historical record.) The focus of gender history is less on the predicament of one sex than on the whole field of relations between the sexes. And this field includes not just the obvious points of contact such as marriage and sex, but all social relations and all political institutions which, on this view, are in varying degrees structured by gender: by the exclusion of women, by the polarization of masculine and feminine attributes, and so on. Men are no less constructed by gender than women are. Both men’s social power and their ‘masculine’ qualities can only be apprehended as aspects of a gender system: neither ‘natural’ nor constant, but defined by a shifting relation to the feminine. This perspective underlies recent writing on the tortuous evolution of the term ‘manliness’ since the early modern period, and the best work on the history of the family.8 Because both sexes can only be correctly understood in relational terms, the history of gender is conceptually equipped to attain a fully comprehensive social reach and to feature in any serious theory of social structure and social change.

性别史与马克思主义理论

Gender history and Marxist theory

与马克思主义历史的比较颇具启发性。性别史与阶级史一样,都面临着历史解释的需求与解放政治之间的张力。性别史具有进行全面社会分析的潜力,至少也展现出以下前景:性别史弥补了马克思主义理论的一些不足。马克思主义历史学家在生产分析方面堪称翘楚,但他们的理论对再生产——无论是将其视为生物事件还是社会化过程——的重视程度却远不及性别史。更广泛地说,性别史打破了几乎所有历史著作中都存在的公私领域之间的僵化划分。莱昂诺尔·戴维多夫和凯瑟琳·霍尔的《家族财富》(1987)一书有力地表明,这种划分可能掩盖了过去经济和社会生活的真正复杂性。她们的核心论点是,在19世纪初的英国,蓬勃发展的商业世界的一个关键目标就是支持家庭和家庭生活——反过来,中产阶级男性所应具备的家庭特质(例如节制、责任感等)也符合创业和职业生活的需求。在这类研究中,性别与阶级的历史关系开始以其错综复杂的特殊性被揭示出来。

Comparisons with Marxist history are illuminating. Gender history has experienced the same tension between the demands of historical explanation and the politics of emancipation as the history of class has done. With its potential for a comprehensive social analysis, gender history also promises at the very least to make good some of the deficiencies of Marxist theory. Marxist historians are second to none in analysing production, but their theory gives much less weight to reproduction – whether viewed as a biological event or a process of socialization. More broadly, gender history has the effect of collapsing the rigid distinction between the public and private spheres which has informed almost all historical writing. That this distinction may have obscured the true complexity of economic and social life in the past is strongly indicated by Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall’s Family Fortunes (1987). Their central thesis is that in early nineteenth-century England one of the key objectives of the burgeoning business world was to support the family and domesticity – and conversely that the approved domestic traits of middle-class men (sobriety, sense of duty and so on) answered to the requirements of entrepreneurial and professional life. In work of this kind, the historical relationship of gender and class begins to be uncovered in all its intricate particularity.

III

性别与意义的文化史

Gender and the cultural history of meaning

迄今为止,我一直将性别视为加深我们对过去社会结构理解的工具。但性别不仅仅是一个结构性问题,它还深刻地触及主体性和身份认同。这些视角最好被视为文化转向的范畴。它们不像经典的女权主义议程那样具有政治共鸣,后者关注意识觉醒、父权制和抵抗。事实上,文化视角下的女性史研究之所以流行,在很多情况下反映了人们对政治女权主义的失望——认为政治女权主义要么已经走得足够远,要么注定无法取得更大的成就。文化转向也与当代性别和性取向的更广泛变化相契合。如今,性别差异不再被视为一种生物学上的既定事实,而越来越多地被视为一种个人选择,并受到文化的影响。一旦传统的男女二元区分被修正,以适应实际存在的性别多样性,男性气质和女性气质的表达就越来越成为心理学和文化问题。最后,文化转向涉及到一个棘手的原始证据问题——这始终是历史学家面临的一个难题。致力于重现一段被掩埋的历史。文化转向将文献的匮乏转化为优势,把文本解读为“话语”:它们不局限于单一的意义,而是可以接受各种各样——甚至是颠覆性的——解读。

Thus far I have characterized gender as a tool for deepening our understanding of the social structures of the past. But gender is not only a structural question. It touches on subjectivity and identity in profound ways. These perspectives are best considered as the province of the cultural turn. They do not have the same political resonance as the classic feminist agenda of conscious-ness-raising, patriarchy and resistance. Indeed the popularity of cultural approaches to women’s history reflects in many cases a disenchantment with political feminism – as having either gone far enough or being doomed to failure in attempting to achieve more. The cultural turn is also in tune with broader contemporary changes in gender and sexuality. Sexual difference is today seen less as a biological given, and increasingly as a matter of personal choice, mediated by culture. Once the traditional binary distinction between male and female is modified to take account of the gender diversity that actually exists, the articulation of masculinities and femininities becomes more and more a matter of psychology and culture. Last, the cultural turn bears on the vexed question of primary evidence – always a problem for historians bent on recovering a hidden past. The cultural turn makes a virtue of the paucity of documentation by reading the texts as ‘discourse’: not imprisoned within a single meaning, but open to diverse – and even subversive – readings.

性别的文化建构

The cultural creation of gender

实际上,这种转变意味着两件事。首先,如果性别差异并非主要源于天性或本能,那么它就必须后天灌输。父母或许会将此视为一项个人任务,但其本质上具有文化属性,因为负责育儿的人是在特定的文化语境下理解性别差异和人格发展。简而言之,性别是一种知识。直到不久前,性别差异还被自然化(并简化)成预设的模式,大多数人对此不加质疑。这些知识的形式多种多样:例如,关于身体的明确知识,如亚里士多德的《性学大全》 (在十八世纪及以后的英国反复再版)等性教育手册;或是关于性品格的道德教诲,如十九世纪关于淑女的著作;又或是关于性别差异的假设,这些假设渗透到精英文学和大众文学的各个领域近来的历史学家密切关注所有这些材料,追踪着那些与世代相传的根深蒂固的假设之间的矛盾和微妙的侧重点转变。

In practical terms, this shift means two things. First, if gender difference is not principally a matter of nature or instinct, it must be instilled. Parents may experience this as an individual task, but it is essentially cultural in character, since those who are charged with childcare operate within certain cultural understandings of sexual difference and personality development. Gender, in short, is knowledge. Until the very recent past, sexual difference was naturalized (and simplified) into predetermined scripts which most people did not question. Those forms of knowledge took a variety of forms: explicit knowledge about the body, as in sex manuals such as Aristotle’s Masterpiece (repeatedly reprinted in England throughout the eighteenth century and beyond); or heavily moralized teaching about sexual character, as in nineteenth-century writings about the proper lady; or again, the assumptions about sexual difference that pervade literature in both its elite and popular forms. Recent historians have given close attention to all this material, tracking the contradictions and subtle shifts of emphasis against the bedrock assumptions that remained firm for generations.9

文化视角下的性别问题第二个维度探讨了差异性。所有社会身份的形成都部分依赖于排斥的过程。我们既由我们“不是什么”来定义,也由我们“是什么”来定义。通常,对“圈外人”的负面刻板印象与对成员共同之处的信念同样强大。就性别差异而言,将自我与“他者”联系起来进行定义尤为突出,因为大多数幼儿的社会意识都建立在男性和女性之间的根本区别之上。所有属性都可以映射到这种二元对立上。因此,所有性别定义都是关系性的,因为它们源于与异性的互动,并表达了对该性别的假设:以“女性气质”作为男性行为界限的持久话语便充分证明了这一点。话语对于这种“他者化”过程至关重要,部分原因在于……二元结构深深植根于语言之中(例如好与坏、黑与白等等),部分原因是语言以无穷无尽的、具有文化特殊性的形式记录了男性与女性之间的这种对立。在精神分析中,与雅克·拉康相关的传统也高度重视语言,认为它是儿童获得性别认同的途径。 10

The second dimension of the cultural approach to gender takes up the issue of difference. All social identities work partly by a process of exclusion. We are defined as much by what we are not, as by what we are. Often the negative stereotyping of those beyond the pale is just as powerful as the corresponding belief in what members have in common. In the case of sexual difference, defining the self in relation to ‘the other’ is particularly pronounced because the social consciousness of most young children is predicated on a fundamental distinction between male and female. All attributes can be mapped on to this binary opposition. Hence all gender definitions are relational, in the sense that they arise from interaction with the other sex and express assumptions about that sex: the enduring discourse of ‘effeminacy’ as a boundary for men’s behaviour bears ample witness to that. Discourse is vital to this process of ‘othering’, partly because binary structures are deeply embedded in language (good v. bad, black v. white, etc.), and partly because language registers this opposition between male and female in an endless variety of culturally specific forms. In psychoanalysis the tradition associated with Jacques Lacan also places prime emphasis on language as the means by which children acquire their sexed identities.10

雅克·拉康(1901–81)

Jacques Lacan (1901–81)

他是二十世纪最具影响力的精神分析学家之一。作为一名法国弗洛伊德主义者,他发展出一种“结构主义精神分析”,探索语言、文本和无意识之间的关系。他成为语言学转向的核心理论家,进而成为文化研究领域一个重要分支的核心人物。尽管拉康对历史鲜有论述,但他的理论却被精神分析史学家广泛借鉴。

One of the most influential psychoanalysts of the twentieth century. A French Freudian, he developed a ‘structural psychoanalysis’ which explored the relationship between language, texts and the unconscious. He became a central theorist for the linguistic turn, and thus for an influential strand of cultural studies. Although Lacan had little to say about history, he has been drawn upon by psychoanalytic historians.

话语分析方法在性史领域展现出尤为显著的成效。正如近期研究中所定义的,性史是一个比人们想象中更为宽泛的主题。它既可以从医学知识的角度进行研究,也可以作为一套反映当时社会风俗的法律定义和禁令进行考察。11与当代性政治最为契合的研究方法优先关注身份认同问题。例如,男性和女性究竟在何时开始将自己以及彼此归类为“异性恋”和“同性恋”?这些类别是否具有排他性?自20世纪70年代的开创性研究以来,历史学家给出的答案变得更加复杂。马特·霍尔布鲁克(Matt Houlbrook)的研究表明,在20世纪上半叶,“酷儿伦敦”并非单一的同性恋身份认同。他运用一系列生动的个人经历,区分出三种类型:举止女性化、自我戏剧化的“女王”;行事低调的中产阶级同性恋者;以及与男女均有性关系并自认为“正常”的工人阶级男性。在霍尔布鲁克所描述的时期,所有同性恋行为都属于违法行为。他讲述的故事既关乎逃避和陷害,也关乎自我发现——这提醒我们,恐同症有着深厚的历史根源。 12

One field in which the discourse approach has proved particularly fruitful is the history of sexuality. As defined in recent work, this is a broader theme than might be imagined. It can be studied through the prism of medical knowledge, or as a set of legal definitions and prohibitions, reflected in the social mores of the day.11 The approach that has most resonance with contemporary sexual politics prioritizes the question of identity. At what point, for example, did men and women begin to categorize themselves – and each other – as ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’? And were these exclusive categories? The answers given by historians have become more complicated since the pioneering studies in the 1970s. Matt Houlbrook shows that in the first half of the twentieth century ‘queer London’ did not comprise a single homosexual identity. He draws on a range of vivid personal evidence to distinguish three types: the effeminate self-dramatizing ‘queen’, the discreet middle-class homosexual, and the working-class man who had sex with both women and men and regarded himself as ‘normal’. In the period covered by Houlbrook all homosexual acts were still against the law. The story he tells is as much concerned with evasion and entrapment as with self-discovery – a reminder that homophobia has deep historical roots.12

性别与权力的新两极分化

Gender and the new polarities of power

如今在同性恋历史和其他性别史分支中发现的身份认同分裂,与早期女权主义强调的以“姐妹情谊”概括的共同经历和共同压迫截然不同。一旦表征和话语得到充分发挥,“身份认同”就无法停留在宏观层面;剖析个体将自身置于其中的复杂意义网络,会打破这些宏大的范畴,并在阶级、民族、种族、地域、年龄、性取向等层面撕开裂痕。女性作为一个整体的概念变得难以维系。但这并不意味着性别已经失去了政治意义。相反,性别史反映的是一种不同的政治。琼·斯科特有力地论证了语言学方法有助于揭示所有权力关系中的性别维度。她的论证基于两个密切相关的命题。首先,性别是所有社会关系(从最亲密的关系到最疏离的关系)的结构性(或“构成性”)要素,因为其中总是存在着对某一性别的排斥,或者对两性之间精心规范(且通常不平等)关系的假设。其次,性别是权力关系在文化层面上得以体现的重要方式。 13以一个反复出现的例子为例,长期以来,人们在提及战争时毫不妥协的“男性化”词汇被用来为年轻男性被要求承受的生命牺牲辩护。在维多利亚时代,国家资助的福利制度被其反对者斥为“感伤主义”——一种女性特质。 14还可以列举许多其他类似的例子。此外,这些性别意义不应被视为静止不变或既定的,政治分析的一项显而易见的任务是追踪它们在不同语境中的重新诠释和争论。文化多样性的性别史或许难以摆脱旧有的稳固集体主义,但它对于理解权力如何在个人和社会关系中得以体现却大有裨益。

The fracturing of identity that is now found in gay history and other branches of gender history is a far cry from the earlier feminist emphasis on the common experience and common oppression summed up in ‘sisterhood.’ Once representation and discourse are given full play, ‘identity’ cannot be frozen at this macro-level; dissecting the complex web of meanings in which individuals situate themselves has the effect of breaking down these large categories by opening up fissures along lines of class, nation, ethnicity, region, age, sexuality and so on. The notion of women as a collectivity becomes hard to sustain. That does not mean, however, that gender has become drained of political content; instead gender history reflects a different kind of politics. Joan Scott argues strongly that a linguistic approach serves to expose the gender dimension of all power relations. Her argument hinges on two closely related propositions. First, gender is a structural (or ‘constitutive’) element of all social relationships, from the most intimate to the most impersonal, because there is always an assumption either of the exclusion of one sex, or of a carefully regulated (and usually unequal) relationship between the sexes. Second, gender is an important way in which relationships of power are signified in cultural terms.13 To take a recurrent case, the uncompromisingly ‘masculine’ terms in which war is referred to have for a very long time served to legitimate the sacrifice of life that young men are called upon to endure. In the Victorian era the idea of state-funded welfare was damned as ‘sentimentality’ – a feminine attribute – by its enemies.14 Many other comparable examples could be cited. Furthermore, these gendered meanings should not be seen as static or given, and an obvious task for politically informed analysis is to trace their reinterpretation and contestation in different contexts. Gender history of the cultural variety may be resistant to the solid collectivities of old, but it has much to contribute to an understanding of how power is articulated in personal and social relations

这一点可以通过朱迪思·沃科维茨的学术生涯来说明。她的第一本书出版于1980年,从阶级和性别的视角分析了维多利亚时代社会的卖淫现象:书中记录了当时的双重性标准、妓女遭受的物质剥削,以及那些希望废除严苛的卖淫管制法律的人们的政治策略。其政治倾向显而易见——事实上,书中明确承认了妇女解放运动的帮助。 15 十二年后,沃科维茨出版了《恐怖之城》(1992),研究了19世纪80年代伦敦的性丑闻和性话语。在前一本书的视角下,儿童卖淫和开膛手杰克——本书的主要主题——本应引发对卖淫行业以及皮条客、妓女和嫖客之间权力关系的唯物主义分析。这些问题并未被忽略,但沃科维茨现在更关注的是被呈现为正在发生的事情,而不是实际发生的事情。本书副标题“维多利亚时代晚期伦敦的性危险叙事”准确地反映了她对哪些故事盛行以及为什么盛行的关注。但正如她所强调的,这是一个深刻的政治问题,因为大众对性性格和性道德的认知都包含在某种规训话语之中,而报刊只是其中的一个组成部分。《恐怖之城》或许不如她之前的作品那样具有政治冲击力,但它对某些性别话语如何占据主导地位、另一些话语如何被边缘化的文化过程进行了精辟的研究。

This point can be illustrated with reference to the scholarly career of Judith Walkowitz. Her first book, published in 1980, analysed prostitution in Victorian society through the prism of class and gender: it documented the double sexual standard of the day, the material exploitation of the prostitutes, and the political strategies of those who wished to repeal the draconian legislation that regulated the trade. Its political sympathies were plain – indeed the help of the Women’s Liberation movement is explicitly acknowledged.15 Twelve years later Walkowitz followed this up with City of Dreadful Delight (1992), a study of sexual scandals and sexual discourses in London during the 1880s. Within the perspective of the earlier book, child prostitution and Jack the Ripper – the main subjects here – would have invited a materialist analysis of the vice trade and the power relations between procurers, prostitutes and clients. These matters are not ignored, but Walkowitz is now less interested in what happened than in what was represented as happening. The book’s subtitle, ‘Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London’, accurately reflects her concern with which stories prevailed and why. But, as she emphasizes, this is a deeply political question, since popular notions of sexual character and sexual morality were contained within a regulatory discourse, of which the newspaper press was merely one element. City of Dreadful Delight may lack the political bite of the earlier book, but it is a fine study of the cultural processes that make some gender discourses hegemonic, while marginalizing others.

严苛的

draconian

过于苛刻。

Excessively harsh.

开膛手杰克

Jack the Ripper

“开膛手杰克”这个绰号在当时及之后一直沿用,用来指代1888年发生在伦敦东区白教堂的一系列极其残忍的妓女谋杀案的凶手。关于凶手身份的猜测层出不穷,甚至有人指控一位著名画家和一位王室成员,由此催生了一个庞大的“开膛手杰克研究”产业。这起案件至今仍令历史学家们着迷,其吸引力丝毫不亚于谋杀案本身。

The nickname current at the time and since for the perpetrator of a series of extremely brutal murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel, in the East End of London, in 1888. Speculation about the identity of the murderer, which has led to accusations against, among others, a famous painter and a member of the royal family, has spawned a virtual industry of ‘ripperologists’. The fascination the case continues to exert is as interesting to historians as the original murders themselves.

1888年臭名昭著的“开膛手杰克”谋杀案,不仅是维多利亚时代晚期伦敦犯罪和卖淫现象的案例研究,也反映了当时人们对这些谋杀案如此着迷的集体文化心态。(Topfoto/Topham/Picturepoint)

The notorious ‘Jack the Ripper’ murders of 1888 provide a case study not only of crime and prostitution in late Victorian London but also of the collective cultural mentality that found the murders so fascinating. (Topfoto/Topham/Picturepoint)

因此,“性别史对整个学科做出了哪些贡献?”这个问题没有简单的答案。正如沃科维茨的轨迹所示,性别研究已成为社会史和文化史不可或缺的一部分。历史学家如果只谈论“人民”或“工人阶级”,而不明确提及女性,这是不可接受的。而且,他们也很难在不根据具体历史语境对“女性”这一概念进行细致限定的情况下做到这一点。正如苏珊·佩德森所言,

There can, then, be no simple answer to the question ‘What has gender history contributed to the discipline as a whole?’ Writing about gender has become integral to both social history and cultural history, as Walkowitz’s trajectory suggests. It is no longer acceptable for historians to write about ‘the people’ or ‘the working class’ without dealing explicitly with women. And they are unlikely to do so without closely qualifying the category of ‘woman’ according to the specific historical context. As Susan Pedersen has put it,

如果说文化史……取得了什么成就,那就是质疑了可以用单一标准来评价不同社会性别关系的假设。16

If cultural history … has accomplished anything, it has been to call into question the assumption that one can evaluate gender relations in different societies by a single standard.16

同样,文化认同问题复杂且充满争议;但性别始终是其中的一部分——并非作为一套现成的理论,而是作为一系列与性别生活体验和表征相关的开放式问题。最后,作为一种隐喻语言,性别已被政治史学家所采用,从而丰富了我们对政治文化及其对政治共同体影响的理解。

Equally, questions of cultural identity are complex and contentious; but gender is always part of the mix – not as a ready-made theory, but as an open-ended cluster of issues to do with the experience and representation of gendered lives. Last, as a metaphorical language gender has been taken up by political historians, thus enriching our understanding of political culture and its purchase on the political community.

第四

IV

后殖民主义:一种新的范式

Postcolonialism: a new paradigm

后殖民史与性别史一样,都以历史上某一类人群的边缘化或权利剥夺为出发点。但后殖民史的研究范围要广得多。虽然性别史中并非没有全球或比较研究,但这些研究通常是在国界之内进行的,而且往往局限于地方社群层面。而后殖民史则本质上是全球性的。地方研究虽然比比皆是,但它们都以全球关系的重要性为前提:并非当代全球化分析家们经常提及的那种无关痛痒的全球关系,而是权力与从属关系如何导致众多第三世界社会的困境。西方长达五百年的殖民统治被认为使这些社会陷入贫困和屈辱。将这些社会的历史从西方人居高临下的刻板印象中解放出来,是它们获得解放的先决条件。但对于后殖民学者而言,西方所理解的历史学术话语始终存在疑问,因为历史学家曾深度参与压制非西方传统。其结果导致了一些令人不安的批判,这些批判对历史作为一门学术研究的合法性提出了重大质疑。

Postcolonial history, like gender history, takes as its starting point the marginalization or dispossession of a large category of people in the past. But its scope is much wider. While global or comparative studies are not unknown in gender history, it has usually been conceptualized within national boundaries, and often at the level of the local community. Postcolonial history, on the other hand, is intrinsically global. Local studies abound, but they are premised on the salience of global relations: not in the anodyne sense so often conveyed by analysts of contemporary globalization, but in terms of the relations of power and subordination that account for the parlous condition of so many Third World societies. The 500-year long colonial project of the West is seen to have impoverished and humiliated those societies. Rescuing their history from the patronizing stereotypes of Westerners is a precondition for their emancipation. But for postcolonial scholars a question-mark hangs over the academic discourse of history as the West has understood it, for historians were deeply implicated in the silencing of non-Western traditions. The outcome has been some disturbing critiques in which major doubts have been aired about the validity of history as a scholarly pursuit.

殖民地社会长期以来被排除在历史研究范围之外,这一点毋庸置疑。仅追溯到十九世纪历史学的兴起,兰克就将其大量的历史著作局限于欧洲次大陆。他于1886年去世时仍在撰写的《世界通史》是一部从罗马帝国末期开始的欧洲史。他的后继者和模仿者们在民族框架内进行研究,有时会提及过去的帝国缔造者,但不会提及殖民地社会。他们掠夺的社会。马克思的兴趣更为广泛。他对印度的事件撰写了精辟的评论,但他认为印度本身游离于历史之外,因为其生产方式缺乏内在的变革动力:为了分享西方社会的进步发展,印度需要被其中一个社会征服和统治,这就是为什么马克思认为英国在印度的统治总体上是积极的。至少在理论层面上,印度和中国拥有历史是不可否认的,因为它们复杂的国家结构显然与欧洲的国家结构存在某种相似之处。但非洲甚至连这一历史研究的资格都被剥夺了,因为人们错误地认为非洲根本没有发展出任何国家结构。

About the longstanding exclusion of colonized societies from the scope of historical study there can be no doubt. To go no further back than the emergence of the historical profession in the nineteenth century, Ranke confined his huge output of historical writing to the European sub-continent. His Universal History, on which he was working when he died in 1886, was a history of Europe from the last centuries of the Roman Empire. His successors and imitators worked within a national frame which sometimes included the empire builders of the past, but not the societies on which they preyed. Marx had broader interests. He wrote perceptive commentaries on events in India, but India itself he regarded as being outside history because its mode of production lacked an internal dynamic of change: in order to share the progressive development of Western societies, it needed to be conquered and administered by one of those societies, which is why Marx regarded British rule in India as broadly positive. At a theoretical level at least, it could not be denied that India and China had a history, since there was evidently some parallel between their sophisticated state structures and those of Europe. But Africa was denied even this qualification for historical study because it was wrongly assumed to have evolved no state structures at all.

二十世纪世界历史上最引人注目的特征之一,便是正式殖民统治的终结。在短短二十年间(1947-1966年),南亚和非洲的大部分国家都获得了独立。(此前唯一的先例是1776年至1822年间英国、西班牙和葡萄牙对美洲殖民地的解放。)然而,独立带来的平等仅仅停留在形式层面:在许多国家,殖民统治时期特有的依附性和贫困在自治后的最初几十年里反而加剧了。与此同时,主权国家不再像殖民统治时期那样遭受残酷的压迫。它们的领导人大多受过高等教育,精通西方思想。这些国家的首要任务之一便是发展现代教育体系,包括建立全新的高等教育机构。在第三世界国家的大学中开展历史研究,是为了给学校提供适合独立国家的历史课程:这是重新评估殖民关系及其持久影响的时机成熟的一个非常实际的原因。

The ending of formal colonial rule was one of the most striking features of world history in the twentieth century. Within the space of twenty years (1947–66) most of the countries of South Asia and Africa became independent. (The only precedent was the emancipation of the American colonies held by Britain, Spain and Portugal between 1776 and 1822). However, independence brought equality in only the most formal sense: in many countries the dependence and impoverishment that had characterized colonial status intensified during the first decades of self-rule. At the same time, sovereign peoples could not be patronized in quite such a brutal fashion as they had been under colonial rule. Their leaders were in many cases highly educated and well versed in Western thought. One of the priorities of these states was the development of a modern education system, including entirely new institutions of higher education. Historical research was conducted in the universities of Third World countries in order to furnish the schools with a history curriculum appropriate to an independent nation: one very practical reason why the time was ripe for a reappraisal of the colonial relationship and its enduring legacy.

但这种重新评估的意义十分复杂。乍看之下,“后殖民”仅仅是一个方便的时间标记,它标志着我们所处的时代殖民主义已被瓦解;它甚至可以被理解为殖民时代已成为过去,应该留在过去,而我们应该专注于未来。然而,那些采用“后殖民”这一标签的学者们并非如此解读。他们认为,殖民主义利用其对学习和文化资源的控制,对后殖民时代进行了破坏。殖民主义建立的知识体系不仅使欧洲人对殖民社会产生了扭曲的认知,而且也被被殖民者内化。这些扭曲至今仍然存在,阻碍着前殖民地的发展。因此,对“后殖民”一词肤浅的时间性解读是不可取的:殖民主义并未真正结束,而是以非正式和隐蔽的方式延续至今(有时被称为“新殖民主义”)。后殖民主义中更为激进的一个分支认为,由于西方学术长期以来被用作压迫殖民社会的工具,其知识地位——涵盖整个启蒙传统——已受到致命的损害。至此,后殖民主义超越了殖民世界的范畴,与后现代主义一起,成为对西方知识传统进行批判的又一重要分支。

But the implications of that reappraisal are complex. At first glance ‘postcolonial’ is simply a convenient chronological marker, designating our age as one in which colonialism has been dismantled; it could even be taken to mean that the colonial era lies in the past and should remain there while we focus on the future. That is not how the label ‘postcolonial’ is interpreted by the scholars who have adopted it for themselves. Their contention is that colonialism used its control over the resources of learning and culture to establish forms of knowledge that not only gave Europeans a distorted picture of colonial societies, but were internalized by the colonized themselves. Those distortions persist, inhibiting the development of ex-colonies to this day. For this reason the superficial temporal reading of the term ‘postcolonial’ is rejected: colonialism has not really ended but continues in less formal and more covert ways (sometimes referred to as ‘neo-colonialism’). A still more radical strand of postcolonialism maintains that because Western learning served so long as a means of subordinating colonial societies, its intellectual standing – embracing the entire Enlightenment tradition – is fatally compromised. At this point postcolonialism moves beyond the colonial world and becomes – alongside Postmodernism – a further strand in the negative critique of the Western intellectual tradition.

来自第三世界和西方的理论家

Theorists from the Third World and the West

后殖民主义听起来像是第三世界的真实声音,某种程度上也的确如此。其领军人物——爱德华·萨义德、霍米·巴巴和加亚特里·查克拉沃蒂·斯皮瓦克——都来自中东或南亚。但除了萨义德之外,他们的著作晦涩难懂(尤其对于他们祖国的读者而言)。这三位学者都曾(或目前)受聘于美国大学。此外,尽管后殖民主义学者有时宣称拒绝欧洲思想,但他们的理论并非源于本土,而是借鉴了西方一些最杰出的知识分子。然而,真正启发他们的是反叛者和激进分子,而非自由主义者,甚至也不是马克思主义者。其中最重要的影响来自福柯。正如第七章所述,福柯将所有话语都视为权力/知识的形式,其作用在于将人们限制在特定的世界观和自身定位框架内。在福柯看来,语言并非仅仅是权力的一种形式;这是最重要的权力。因为语言使用者没有意识到自身受到的制约,他们错误地认为语言表达了世界的本来面目。最具影响力的后殖民理论家爱德华·萨义德将福柯的思想应用于十九世纪和二十世纪西方关于阿拉伯世界的著述。萨义德是一位文学学者而非历史学家,但他开创性的著作《东方主义》(1978)对中东的历史表述有着深刻的理解。萨义德的分析基于这样一个理念:当一种文化试图代表另一种文化时,话语的权力功能就会被强化,因为它试图将“他者”——一种被视为自身文化病态对立的文化建构——定义出来。这种对阿拉伯“他者”的刻画在数十年间不断重复,最终固化成一套本质主义的判断,萨义德称之为“东方主义”。它渗透到阿拉伯世界“专家”的观点中,渗透到被派往中东殖民地的行政官员的观点中,而且——尤其阴险的是——渗透到许多接受西方教育的阿拉伯人的观点中,这些人被鼓励摒弃自己的文化。东方主义赋予帝国主义者统治的信心,并削弱了被殖民者的文化资源。萨义德将东方主义概括为“帝国主义的科学”,他的目标是“减少帝国主义枷锁对思想和人际关系的影响”。 17

Postcolonialism sounds like the authentic voice of the Third World, and in one sense it is. The leading lights – Edward Said, Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak – come or came from the Middle East or South Asia. But – with the notable exception of Said – their writings are abstract and opaque (not least to readers in their countries of origin). All three are (or were) employed by American universities. Furthermore, despite the rejection of European thought that is sometimes proclaimed by postcolonial scholars, their theories are not home-grown, but are derived from some of the most high-profile Western intellectuals. But it is the rebels and the radicals who have inspired them, rather than the liberals or even the Marxists. Much the most important influence is Foucault. As explained in Chapter 7, Foucault regarded all discourses as forms of power/knowledge, which served to confine people within specific ways of understanding the world and their place in it. According to Foucault, language is not just one variant of power; it is the most important kind of power. Because the users of language are not aware of being constrained, they mistakenly suppose that it expresses the world as it is. Edward Said, the most influential postcolonial theorist, applied Foucault’s thinking to Western writing about the Arab world during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Said was a literary scholar rather than a historian, but his path-breaking Orientalism (1978) is deeply versed in historical representations of the Middle East. His analysis was based on the idea that when one culture seeks to represent another, the power function of discourse is intensified because it is attempting to pin down the Other – a cultural construct perceived as a pathological opposite of one’s own culture. Repeated over many decades, the rendering of the Arab Other hardened into a set of essentialist judgements which Said called ‘Orientalism’. It permeated the views of ‘experts’ on the Arab world, administrators posted to colonial territories in the Middle East, and – most insidiously – many Arabs educated in the Western tradition who were encouraged to reject their own culture. Orientalism gave imperialists the confidence to dominate, and it undermined the cultural resources of the colonized. Said summed up Orientalism as a ‘science of imperialism’, his goal being to ‘reduce the effects of imperialist shackles on thought and human relations’.17

西方对东方生活的描绘强调了其“他者性”,将女性描绘成性对象和性奴。欧仁·德拉克罗瓦的《阿尔及尔的女人》(1834年)则相对克制地描绘了后宫景象。(布里奇曼艺术图书馆/法国巴黎卢浮宫/吉罗东)

Western portrayals of Oriental life emphasized its otherness by displaying women as sex objects and sex slaves. The Women of Algiers (1834) by Eugene Delacroix is a relatively restrained depiction of a harem. (Bridgeman Art Library/Louvre, Paris, France/Giraudon)

V

V

种族与种族主义

Race and racism

“种族”概念便是其中一种束缚。在殖民时代,种族主义意识形态被发展出来,用来解释所谓“土著”民族的劣等性——既包括他们的本土文化,也包括他们无法同化西方文化。“种族”被视为固定不变的、由生物学决定的,这在逻辑上意味着西方统治应该无限期地持续下去;事实上,一些种族主义作家甚至认为白人和黑人走在不同的进化道路上。对其他种族的极度贬损的刻板印象反过来又维护了英国人——或者法国人、德国人——“种族”的自我美化形象。后殖民时代的反动呈现出两种截然相反的形式。具有强烈民族认同感的少数族裔构建了一种所谓的“反向话语”;他们接受“种族”概念,因为这个词将生物学血统和文化融合在一起,形成了一种强大的组合,最大限度地增强了群体凝聚力,并强调了与其他群体的距离。在美国和英国的黑人中,非洲中心主义得到了相当多的支持——这种观点认为存在绝对的种族差异,并相信非洲的文化传统是正统地传承给现代散居各地的黑人的。这种思维方式在非洲裔人群中最为盛行并非偶然:这是对几个世纪以来奴役的一种可以理解的反应,奴役不仅侵犯了他们的文化认同,也侵犯了他们的人格尊严。然而,非洲中心主义是建立在脱离历史的假设之上的。它与它所反对的白人种族主义一样,本质上都是本质主义的。历史上,几乎没有哪个国家或种族群体是完全同质的。非洲散居群体与白人社群有着长达五个世纪的密切——有时甚至是亲密的——接触,他们的性格深受这种接触的影响(白人社会亦是如此)。种族和民族认同的形成从来都不是一个一劳永逸的事件,而是一个不断发展的过程。 18

One of those shackles was the concept of ‘race’. During the colonial era racist ideologies were developed to explain the supposed inferiority of ‘native’ peoples – both their indigenous culture and their inability to assimilate Western culture. ‘Race’ was treated as fixed and biologically determined, which logically meant that Western domination should last indefinitely; indeed some racist writers argued that white and black were on different evolutionary paths. Highly derogatory stereotypes of other races served in turn to sustain a flattering self-image of the British – or French or German – ‘race.’ The postcolonial reaction has taken two antithetical forms. Minorities with a strong ethnic identity have constructed what might be called a ‘reverse discourse’; they embrace the concept of ‘race’ because the term brings biological descent and culture together in a powerful amalgam that maximizes group cohesion and emphasizes distance from other groups. Among black people in America and Britain there is considerable support for Afrocentrism – the belief in an absolute sense of ethnic difference and in the transmission of an authentic cultural tradition from Africa to black people of the modern diaspora. It is no accident that this way of thinking is strongest among people of African descent: it is an understandable reaction to centuries of enslavement which was an assault on their cultural identity as well as their human dignity. But Afrocentrism is based on ahistorical assumptions. It is as essentialist as the white forms of racism against which it is mobilized. Very few nations or racial groups have ever been ethnically homogeneous. The societies of the African diaspora have been in close – and sometimes intimate – contact with white communities for five centuries, and their character has been deeply influenced by that contact (as has that of white society). The formation of racial and national identities is never a once-and-for-all event, but an unfolding process.18

与其简单地照搬殖民主义种族主义,不如采取一种更为激进的方法,彻底质疑种族的前提,而这正是后殖​​民主义主流思想的出发点。生物学被认为无关紧要,因为种族之间的生理差异要么不存在,要么只是表面上的。那些看似“种族”差异的现象,实际上是文化适应的结果,包括与其他文化的接触。殖民话语的一个重要特点在于,它抓住这些特殊性,将其作为白人与黑人之间存在不可调和鸿沟的证据。“种族”本身成为殖民话语的核心,增强了殖民者的自信,并边缘化了被殖民者。以这种方式揭示种族的社会建构尤为重要,因为殖民式的种族主义并未消失。它仍然损害着西方与第三世界国家之间的关系,也影响着英国等前殖民宗主国白人对黑人社区的看法。

Instead of making a mirror-image out of colonial racism, a more radical approach is to dispute the premise of race altogether, and this is what the mainstream of postcolonial thinking sets out to do. Biology is deemed irrelevant, because the physical differences between races are either non-existent or superficial. What may appear to be ‘racial’ difference is the outcome of cultural adaptation, including contact with other cultures. The significant point about colonial discourse was that it seized on these specificities as evidence of an unbridgeable gulf between white and black. ‘Race’ itself became the centerpiece of colonial discourse, bolstering the self-confidence of the colonist and marginalizing the colonized. Demonstrating the social construction of race in this way is all the more important because colonial-style racism has not disappeared. It still mars relations between the West and Third World countries, as well as the white perception of black communities in the former colonial metropoles such as Britain.

大都会

Metropole

“Metropole”过去与“metropolis”意思相同。在学术写作中,它指的是处于全球贸易和剥削网络中心的帝国主义国家(例如英国和美国)。

‘Metropole’ used to mean the same as ‘metropolis’. In academic writing it denotes an imperialist nation that has been at the centre of a global network of trade and exploitation (for example, Britain and the United States).

后殖民主义之所以成为历史学家们的宝贵研究对象,原因之一在于其理论内部存在着不同的侧重点。萨义德著作中的一些矛盾之处已被广泛讨论。他对西方文化对东方的统治地位的描述毫不妥协,甚至有些僵化。东方主义被描绘成一种无所不能的虚构,它消除了西方人其他文化回应的可能性。但正如霍米·巴巴所指出的,在殖民关系中存在着文化适应的空间,因为双方都会出于欲望或野心而被对方的某些特质所吸引:对他而言,混杂性是殖民遭遇的关键。 19殖民地和宗主国之间的界限是模糊的,形成了一个统一的场域。一个相关的问题是,我们应该如何看待无所不能的殖民话语。萨义德在殖民者和被殖民者之间强加了一种“强/弱”的二元对立,几乎不允许后者做出任何不受压迫者摆布的回应。其他学者也认识到,殖民地人民可以操纵西方的论述范畴,甚至将其转化为抵抗的工具,因此殖民统治远比表面看起来更加岌岌可危。 20 关键在于我们如何看待那些游走于传统文化和西方文化之间的本土精英:他们是殖民话语的产物,还是具有潜在自主性的行动者?与此同时,这场辩论往往停留在高度抽象的层面。很少有后殖民理论家承认个人乃至集体能动性的作用。

One of the reasons why postcolonialism has proved a rich vein for historians is the different emphases within the theory. Much has been made of some of the contradictions in Said’s work. There is something uncompromising – even rigid – about his rendering of the West’s cultural dominance over the East. Orientalism is presented as an all-powerful fiction which eliminated other cultural responses on the part of Westerners. But as Homi Bhabha has pointed out, within a colonial relationship there was room for cultural adaptation, as each side was drawn to traits of the other through desire or ambition: for him hybridity is the key to the colonial encounter.19 The boundaries of colony and metropole were porous, making for a single field. A related issue is how all-powerful colonial discourses should be taken to be. Said inscribes a binary distinction of powerful/powerless on the colonizer and the colonized, allowing little scope for the latter to make responses that are not choreographed by the oppressor. Other writers recognize that the colonial subject could manipulate the discursive categories of the West, even turning them to account as tools of resistance, with the result that colonial rule was more precarious than it appeared.20 Much here turns on how we see the indigenous elite who straddled traditional and Western culture: were they creatures of colonial discourse or potentially autonomous actors? At the same time, this debate tends to operate at a high level of abstraction. It is rare to find a postcolonial theorist who acknowledges a role for individual or even collective agency.

六年级

VI

历史学家与后殖民主义

Historians and postcolonialism

那么,历史学家们是如何运用这套在某些方面与他们惯常做法截然相反的理论体系的呢?学科?我们可以先考察历史学家们对殖民时代终结的更广泛反应。非洲是最佳例证,因为在其他任何地方,殖民者对本土历史的无知都远不及非洲。20世纪60年代和70年代,非洲历史学术著作层出不穷,其中一部分出自受过西方教育的非洲学者之手,另一部分则出自认同非洲独立诉求的西方青年学者之手。他们致力于推翻两个既定假设:一是非洲的历史完全由外来者的活动所主导;二是没有任何历史证据可以证实这种历史的存在。事实上,文献资料远比任何人预想的都要丰富。自15世纪以来就与非洲接触,并在19世纪深入非洲内陆的欧洲贸易公司和传教团体,被发现拥有大量的记录;这些记录包括对当地酋长国(外来者赖以生存的根基)的细致观察,以及对非洲文化和社会的描述。在萨赫勒地区的伊斯兰地区、苏丹西部和东非沿海地区,识字的疆界延伸到非洲黑海,一些地方的编年史可以追溯到十六世纪,甚至在尼日利亚北部的索科托哈里发国等少数几个国家,还有一些行政记录的雏形。

How then have historians made use of a body of theory that in some ways is quite antithetical to the habitual practice of their discipline? We can begin by looking at how historians responded more broadly to the ending of the colonial era. Africa is the prime example, since nowhere else had the colonial ignorance of the indigenous past been so profound. The 1960s and 1970s saw an impressive output of scholarly works of African history, written partly by African scholars trained in the West, and partly by young Western scholars who identified with the aspirations of African independence. They set themselves to confound the twin assumptions that Africa had no history apart from the activities of outsiders, and no historical evidence that might substantiate such a history. In fact the documentary resources proved much richer than anyone had supposed. The European trading companies and missionary societies, which had been in contact with Africa since the fifteenth century and by the nineteenth century had penetrated deep into the interior, were found to have extensive records; these included close observation of local chiefdoms on whose support the incomers depended, as well as descriptions of African culture and society. In the Islamic regions of the Sahel, the western Sudan and the East African coast, where the frontiers of literacy extended far into black Africa, there are local chronicles dating back in some cases to the sixteenth century, and even – in a few states such as the Sokoto caliphate of northern Nigeria – a nucleus of administrative records.

索科托哈里发国

Sokoto caliphate

19世纪西非最强大的伊斯兰国家,其中心位于如今的尼日利亚北部。它通过圣战(吉哈德)扩张领土。20世纪初,索科托被英国统治,但其统治者在殖民时期仍然保持着相当大的权力。

The most powerful Islamic state in West Africa in the nineteenth century, centred on what is now northern Nigeria. It expanded by means of jihad (holy war). Sokoto was brought under British rule at the beginning of the twentieth century, but its ruler retained considerable authority during the colonial era.

最令人兴奋的莫过于口述传统的收集和诠释方法的发展。口述传统是前文字社会的普遍特征,但随着识字率的提高,它也注定会逐渐消亡。因此,独立后的第一代人是充分利用“耳朵的遗产”(见下文第11章)的绝佳时机。加纳津巴布韦等中世纪国家等前殖民时期的政治实体如今重见天日,非洲内陆地区融入海外贸易的早期阶段也得以重建。历史学家此前也研究过殖民时期,但大多是从殖民者的视角出发,将其视为发展史和政治家为独立做准备的故事。而现在,殖民时期的主题变成了抵抗——对最初殖民占领者的武装抵抗,以及在争取独立过程中针对殖民国家的政治动员。但历史学家也关注更为顺从的应对措施,特别是旨在支持消费经济萌芽的农民自发行动。21

Most exciting of all was the development of a methodology for collecting and interpreting oral tradition. This was a universal feature of pre-literate societies, and conversely destined to wither away as literacy spread. The first generation of independence was therefore a privileged moment in capitalizing on ‘the heritage of the ears’ (see below, Chapter 11). Pre-colonial political entities like the medieval states of Ghana and Zimbabwe now emerged into the light of history, and the early stages of incorporation of the African interior into the overseas commerce were reconstructed. The colonial period had been studied by historians, but from the perspective of the colonizers, as the story of development and of statesmanlike preparation for independence. Now it featured the theme of resistance – armed resistance to the initial colonial occupiers, and political mobilization against the colonial state during the approach to independence. But historians also focused on more accommodating responses, particularly peasant initiatives that were intended to support the beginnings of a consumer economy.21

加纳

Ghana

这是一个在公元9至11世纪繁荣发展的西非国家。其繁荣的基础是跨撒哈拉贸易,特别是黄金贸易。这个中世纪国家位于今天加纳的北部。

West African state that flourished between the ninth and eleventh centuries. The basis of its prosperity was the trans-Saharan trade, particularly in gold. The medieval state lay well to the north of the present-day Ghana.

津巴布韦

Zimbabwe

津巴布韦是11至14世纪在中非兴盛一时的国家,以其精湛的干砌石建筑技艺而闻名,尤其是大津巴布韦遗址。现代津巴布韦国的国名便源于其中世纪的前身。

Central African state that flourished between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. It is famous for its technically accomplished dry-stone architecture, notably the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. The modern state of Zimbabwe takes its name from its medieval predecessor.

这项非洲历史的开创性研究在很大程度上缺乏理论支撑。研究者们大多自信地认为,西方史学中行之有效的方法足以胜任。殖民时期的档案记录只需要档案研究者一贯的怀疑态度即可。即使是口述传统这种新兴资源,在这一阶段也鲜少受到理论分析。22

This pioneer work in African history was largely innocent of theory. Its practitioners were for the most part confident that the well-tried methods of Western historiography would serve them well. Colonial records required nothing more than the habitual scepticism of the archival researcher. Even the novel resource of oral tradition attracted comparatively little theoretical analysis at this stage.22

底层研究

Subaltern Studies

20世纪80年代,后殖民理论在印度首次对历史学家产生了显著影响。这要归功于拉纳吉特·古哈领导的“底层研究”小组。该小组最初以马克思主义历史为参照,尤其是与E·P·汤普森相关的“自下而上的历史”。该小组的立场体现在对印度民族主义精英的深刻批判——这些人包括尼赫鲁和印度国民大会党的领导人,他们曾引导民众反抗英国殖民统治,并在1947年接管了国家机器。在意识形态上,“底层研究”小组认为,民族主义政治家和记录他们成就的历史学家之间并无本质区别。他们都属于“资产阶级民族主义精英”,与普通印度民众的利益和态度相去甚远。因此,他们选择了“底层”一词:这个词源于马克思主义思想家安东尼奥·葛兰西,用来指代被剥夺权力的社会群体。激进历史学家的任务是将关注点从职业政客转移到底层民众,尤其要揭示底层民众在民众民族主义核心中的地位。这一诉求之所以更具说服力,是因为自1919年以来,英属印度民众骚乱的频繁发生是无可否认的:所缺乏的是一种超越精英阶层反应和操纵的历史叙述。

It was in India during the 1980s that postcolonial theory made a decided impact on historians for the first time. This was the achievement of the Subaltern Studies group, led by Ranajit Guha. Initially its point of reference was Marxist history, especially the ‘history from below’ associated with E.P. Thompson. The orientation of the group was defined by a profound rejection of the nationalist elite in India – men like Nehru and the leaders of the Indian National Congress who had channelled popular resistance to the British Raj and had then inherited control of the state apparatus in 1947. Ideologically, the Subaltern historians claimed there was little to choose between the nationalist politicians and the historians who chronicled their achievements. Both belonged to the ‘bourgeois-nationalist elite’, far removed from the interests and the attitudes of ordinary Indians. Hence the choice of the term ‘subaltern:’ it was drawn from the Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci to denote disempowered social groups. The task of radical historians was to shift the focus from the professional politician to the subaltern, and in particular to reveal the subaltern’s place at the heart of popular nationalism. This aspiration was all the more convincing because the frequency of popular disturbances from 1919 in British India was undeniable: what was lacking was a historical account that went beyond elite response and elite manipulation.

贾瓦哈拉尔·尼赫鲁(1889–1964)

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964)

印度第一任总理,任期从1947年至1962年。

India’s first Prime Minister, from 1947 to 1962.

安东尼奥·葛兰西(1891–1937)

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937)

他是第一次世界大战后意大利共产党的重要人物,后被墨索里尼的法西斯政权监禁,最终死于狱中。他的巨大影响力源于他的理论著作,在这些著作中,他发展出理解民众政治文化和革命先决条件的新方法。

A leading figure in the Italian Communist Party after the First World War, he was imprisoned by the Fascist regime of Mussolini and died in prison. His immense influence stems from his theoretical writings, in which he developed new ways of understanding popular political culture and the pre-conditions of revolution.

从这个角度来看,底层研究是对民族主义史学的一种可预见的“人民史”式的反动(尽管值得指出的是,在非洲,对民族主义的激进反抗要弱得多)。然而,底层史学家很快就受到了萨义德和其他后殖民理论家的影响。随着越来越多的人关注于解构殖民当局大量著述的内容,研究的重点也从物质权力转向了文化权力。部分原因是这样做是为了揭示,即便在今天,许多被视为客观知识的事物实际上都是殖民政权强加的话语:在印度,典型的例子是“种姓”(在非洲则是“部落”)。但这项细致的文本研究的主要目的在于弥补殖民时期穷人被噤声的现象,据说这种现象在独立后第一代历史学家的著作中也得到了重现。尽管英国统治时期文盲率居高不下,农民和工人的声音仍将被置于历史的聚光灯下:“底层民众的声音”将被听到。古哈和他的同事们努力克服底层民众写作的匮乏,他们反其道而行之,解读浩如烟海的政府文献。古哈本人对殖民时期印度农民起义的研究表明,基于官方的窃听或“截获的话语”,部分恢复农民的声音是可能的。正如他所解释的,政府的反叛乱行动会不遗余力地记录任何可能与叛乱活动有关的信息——无论是集市上的谣言、街头的口号,还是法庭证据中的琐碎细节。23

Framed in this way, Subaltern Studies was a predictable ‘people’s history’ reaction against nationalist historiography (though it is worth pointing out that in Africa the radical rejection of nationalism was much weaker). Very quickly, however, the Subaltern historians came under the influence of Said and other postcolonial theorists. The emphasis shifted from material to cultural power, as more and more attention was given to deconstructing what the colonial authorities had written in such profusion. Part of the reason for doing so was to demonstrate how much of what (even now) counts as objective knowledge represented a discursive imposition by the colonial regime: in India the classic instance is ‘caste’ (in Africa it is ‘tribe’). But the main purpose of this close textual study was to make up for the silencing of the poor that had occurred throughout the colonial period and which (it was said) was replicated in the writings of the first generation of post-independence historians. Peasants and workers would be brought into the light of history despite the extent of popular illiteracy under the Raj: ‘the voice of the subaltern’ would be heard. Guha and his colleagues strove to overcome the paucity of subaltern writing by reading the voluminous government sources against the grain. Guha’s own work on peasant insurgency in colonial India suggests that a partial restoration of the peasant voice is possible, based on official eavesdropping or ‘intercepted discourse.’ As he explains, government counter-insurgency compulsively recorded whatever might have a bearing on rebel activities – be it rumours in the bazaar, slogans shouted in the street, or incidental detail in court evidence.23

第七章

VII

对英国历史的后殖民主义重新评价

The postcolonial reappraisal of British history

后殖民主义起源于改变研究第三世界文化的固有概念框架的决心。但殖民主义是一种双向关系,它也改变了殖民社会自身的文化和思维方式。过去,历史学家对这一主题的关注甚至少于对殖民对海外影响的关注。以英国为例,长期以来人们一直将帝国视为“遥远之地”——英国企业和征服的目的地,但对宗主国的生活没有留下显著的印记。后殖民理论对这一假设进行了批判性审视,其论点是殖民地和宗主国是同一体系的组成部分,彼此的影响是双向的。正如安托瓦内特·伯顿所言,帝国“不仅仅是‘遥远之地’的现象,更是英国本土文化和民族认同的根本组成部分”。 24由此可见,帝国的终结使英国——与其前附属国一样——成为一个后殖民社会。

Postcolonialism originated in a determination to change the conceptual map by which Third World cultures were studied. But colonialism was a two-sided relationship that also changed the culture and mentality of the colonizing society. In the past this theme received even less attention from historians than the colonial impact overseas. In the British case there is a long tradition of regarding the empire as ‘out there’ – a destination for British enterprise and conquest, but without a significant imprint on metropolitan life. Postcolonial theory subjects that assumption to critical scrutiny, based on the proposition that colony and metropole were parts of a single system, with influences flowing in both directions. As Antoinette Burton puts it, the empire was ‘not just a phenomenon “out there”, but a fundamental and constitutive part of English culture and national identity at home’.24 It follows that the end of empire makes Britain – no less than its former dependencies – a postcolonial society.

因此,帝国远非“遥不可及”,它在300年间一直是英国人生活中不可或缺的一部分,而且随着帝国的扩张,这种影响变得更加明显。它的终结。这不仅仅是记录世界地图上粉红色区域的比例(这对于英国学童来说是普遍的经历)。爱德华·萨义德认为,十九世纪和二十世纪英国的文学经典渗透着一种帝国意识(最具争议的是简·奥斯汀的小说《曼斯菲尔德庄园》)。但这一论点的核心在于英国人民作为一个整体所共同的经历。到1900年,大多数家庭都有亲戚居住在殖民地;几乎每个人都消费着产地标签清晰的殖民地产品;冒险小说和男孩故事都以殖民地为背景。这些都是帝国文化的构成要素。事实上,有人提出,正是殖民主义使得英国人能够将自己(区别于英格兰人或苏格兰人)视为一个民族。25反过来说,既然帝国已不复存在,那么英国性就需要彻底重新定义。因此,围绕这一问题的争论不仅出现在后殖民历史研究中,也出现在面向更广泛受众的论战文章中,尤其体现在保罗·吉尔罗伊的作品中,也就不足为奇了。26

So far from being ‘out there’ the empire was integral to British life for 300 years, and became more obviously so as it neared its end. This was not just a matter of registering the proportion of pink on the world map (a universal experience for British schoolchildren). Edward Said maintained that the literary canon of nineteenth and twentieth-century England was permeated by an imperial consciousness (most controversially in Jane Austen’s novel, Mansfield Park). But the nub of the argument concerns the experiences that were shared by the British people as a whole. By 1900 most families had kin living in the colonies; virtually everyone consumed colonial products whose provenance was carefully labelled; adventure fiction and boys’ stories were staged against a colonial backdrop. These were the constituents of an imperial culture. Indeed, the argument has been advanced that it was colonialism that made it possible for British people to think of themselves (as distinct from their English or Scottish selves) as a nation.25 The converse of that proposition would be that Britishness is in radical need of redefining now that the empire is no more. It is hardly surprising, then, that debates around this issue feature not just in postcolonial history, but in polemic intended for a wider audience, notably in the work of Paul Gilroy.26

曼斯菲尔德庄园

Mansfield Park

简·奥斯汀的小说,出版于1814年。与奥斯汀的所有小说一样,本书探讨了有产阶级年轻女性的婚姻前景。它并非一部关于帝国的小说。同时,书中也明确指出,家族财富建立在西印度群岛的奴隶种植园之上,而托马斯·伯特伦爵士长期不在家的原因则是他需要前往安提瓜处理事务。

Novel by Jane Austen, published in 1814. Like all Austen’s novels, the book concerns the marriage prospects of young ladies of the propertied class. It is not a novel about the empire. At the same time, it is made clear that the family wealth is based on slavery plantations in the West Indies, and Sir Thomas Bertram’s prolonged absence from the family home is explained by the need to attend to his affairs in Antigua.

萨义德的东方主义著作描绘了一个统一的西方将统一的话语强加于东方的图景。即便在他所关注的文化层面,这种观点如今看来也过于简单化。后殖民历史学家在不淡化帝国暴力和专制主义的前提下,强调影响的双向流动,并非所有影响都直接服务于权力。正如凯瑟琳·霍尔所解释的,“中心”与“边缘”的历史并非遵循简单的二元模式。 27在她的著作《文明的臣民》(2002)中,她将牙买加和伯明翰视为19世纪中期帝国相互交织且同等重要的两个中心。霍尔认为,只有从这个双重视角出发,我们才能理解英国民众对帝国的态度以及加勒比地区前奴隶的政治文化;她尤其重视传教士,因为他们是连接牙买加和伯明翰的主要沟通渠道。殖民地的现实有时会以意想不到的方式影响到宗主国的想象。1790年代,玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特通过类比种植园奴隶制来强化妇女权利的论点(在她著名的《女权辩护》一书中,有超过八十处提及奴隶制)。28而殖民时代的种族观念则以一种不那么积极的方式影响着人们。这些差异叠加在原有的社会等级之上——例如维多利亚时代中期伦敦贫民的“种族化” 。29最引人注目的是所有居住在英国的移民群体所做出的深刻文化调整,这表明巴巴的混杂性概念在都市社会比在殖民地更具说服力。

Said’s work on Orientalism portrayed a unified West imposing unified discourse on the East. Even at the cultural level (with which he was exclusively concerned) this now looks like an oversimplification. Without downplaying the violence and authoritarianism of empire, postcolonial historians emphasize the two-way flow of influences, not all of which ministered directly to power. As Catherine Hall has explained, the histories of ‘metropolis’ and ‘peripheries’ do not follow a simple binary model.27 In her book Civilising Subjects (2002), she treats Jamaica and Birmingham as interlocking – and equally important – sites of empire in the mid-nineteenth century. Only with this double focus, Hall argues, can we understand both British popular attitudes towards the empire and the political culture of the ex-slaves in the Caribbean; and she gives special weight to the missionaries who were the main channel of communication between Jamaica and Birmingham. Colonial realities sometimes impinged on the metropolitan imagination in unexpected ways. In the 1790s Mary Wollstonecraft bolstered the case for women’s rights by drawing an analogy with plantation slavery (there were more than eighty references to slavery in her celebrated Vindication of the Rights of Women).28 In a less constructive way, colonial ideas of race were superimposed on social distinctions back home – as in the ‘racialisation’ of the London poor in the mid-Victorian period.29 Most striking of all was the profound cultural adjustment made by all immigrant communities living in Britain, which suggests that Bhabha’s notion of hybridity has even more purchase in metropolitan society than it does in the colonies.

伦敦穷人的“种族化”

the ‘racialisation’ of the London poor

十九世纪下半叶,受过教育的人常常将穷人比作海外愚昧无知的异教徒。这种比喻不仅暗示穷人在文化和道德上存在缺陷,而且还认为他们属于一个不同的种族。

In the second half of the nineteenth century, educated people often compared the poor to the benighted heathen overseas. The implication was not only that the poor were culturally and morally inadequate, but that they belonged to a separate race.

关于英国性与帝国之间联系的争论十分复杂,因为英国不同群体对帝国的记忆截然不同。这部分源于“三国”概念的局限性:苏格兰人和爱尔兰人在殖民地随处可见,而权力中心却在伦敦,由英格兰人主导的政府掌控。但关键问题在于定居英国的殖民地移民。大规模的黑人移民直到20世纪50年代才开始,正值帝国瓦解之际,但非洲裔和亚裔人士至少从16世纪起就一直生活在英国,他们并非仅仅被视为异类,而是人数众多,足以融入城市社会,尤其是在伦敦和主要港口。他们中的许多人是奴隶,被贩卖到宗主国,这加剧了殖民关系的影响。殖民时期遗留下来的种族刻板印象,即使在奴隶制废除之后依然根深蒂固。正如2007年废除奴隶贸易两百周年纪念所表明的那样,奴隶制在英国仍然触动着人们的痛处:对许多白人而言,奴隶制已被纳入一种以自我为中心的国家慈善叙事之中,这种叙事关注的是奴隶制的终结,而非其漫长的历史。另一方面,对许多黑人而言,奴隶制和奴隶贸易应该被视为另一场大屠杀,并隐含着赔偿的义务。在这场辩论中,我们很少听到过去黑人的声音,原因显而易见:他们在原始资料中鲜有记载:识字的人寥寥无几,能够进入公共领域的更是凤毛麟角(因此,少数18世纪反对奴隶制的黑人宣传家受到了极大的关注)。

The debate about the connections between Britishness and empire is complicated by the fact that different sectors of the British population had – and have – radically divergent memories of empire. Partly this is a dimension of the ‘three kingdoms’ problematic: the Scots and Irish were ubiquitous in the colonies, while the levers of power lay in London with an English-dominated government. But the key issue concerns the colonial immigrants who settled in Britain. Large-scale black immigration only began in the 1950s, just as the empire was being dismantled, but people of African and Asian descent have been continuously present in Britain since at least the sixteenth century, not just as curiosities but in sufficient numbers to take their place in urban society, especially in London and the major ports. The fact that many of them were slaves introduced into the metropole colonial relationships and colonial racial stereotypes that have endured long after the ending of slavery. As the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 2007 showed, slavery still touches a raw nerve in Britain: for many white people it has been subsumed in a self-regarding narrative of national philanthropy, which addresses the end of slavery rather than its long history. For many black people, on the other hand, slavery and the slave trade should be treated as another Holocaust, with an implied duty of compensation. Seldom heard in this debate is the voice of black people in the past, for the familiar reason that they feature so little in the primary sources: few were literate, and fewer still had access to the public sphere (hence the intense attention given to the handful of eighteenth-century black propagandists against slavery).

1948年,西印度群岛移民乘坐“帝国疾风号”( SS Empire Windrush)抵达英国。这是第一艘将大批西印度群岛人带到英国的船只。这些新来者对“祖国”抱有很高的期望,但民众对他们的敌意却让他们的期望瞬间破灭。(Getty Images/Popperfoto)

West Indian emigrants aboard the SS Empire Windrush (1948), the first ship to bring a large group of West Indians to Britain. The new arrivals had high expectations of ‘the mother country’, which were rudely shattered by popular hostility towards them. (Getty Images/Popperfoto)

第八

VIII

问题与障碍

Problems and obstacles

为底层民众寻找历史话语权的难度是真实存在的。后殖民主义的一个重要思潮对此提出了质疑,质疑迄今为止支撑他们研究的学术学科的有效性:如果历史研究无法提供所需的视角,那么“历史”本身就存在缺陷。从底层民众的视角来看,这种质疑不无道理。显而易见的是,在19世纪和20世纪,许多历史学家参与了东方主义研究,萨义德也指出,在他所处的时代,一些颇具影响力的历史学家将他们的东方学知识用于服务西方(尤其是美国)帝国主义。但还有一个更广泛的问题需要指出,那就是西方历史与其他所有历史之间存在的结构性不平衡——迪佩什·查克拉巴蒂称之为“不对称无知”的问题。第三世界的历史学家被期望了解欧洲历史,而欧洲的大多数同行却对亚洲和非洲的历史一无所知。这意味着西方经验的“宏大叙事”——民族主义、民主、资本主义等等——是衡量其他社会的标杆。没有人会反过来进行评估。

The difficulties inherent in finding a historical voice for the subaltern are real enough. An important strand in postcolonialism has responded by questioning the validity of the academic discipline that has framed their efforts hitherto: if historical research cannot yield the desired perspective, then ‘history’ itself must be found wanting. From a subaltern perspective the charge-sheet is compelling. An obvious point is that during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries many historians took part in the Orientalist project, and Said argued that in his own day there were influential historians whose Oriental expertise was placed in the service of Western (particularly American) imperialism. But there is a broader point to be made with regard to the structural imbalance between Western history and all other histories – what Dipesh Chakrabarty calls the problem of ‘asymmetric ignorance’.30 Historians in the Third World are expected to know European history, whereas most of their counterparts in Europe are ignorant of the history of Asia and Africa. The implication is that the ‘grand narratives’ of the Western experience – nationalism, democracy, capitalism and so on – are the benchmark against which other societies should be measured. No one makes the reverse evaluation.

关于殖民地档案馆,也存在一些令人不安的问题需要提出,其中包括前殖民地的大量文献资料以及宗主国的国家档案馆。这些档案不仅反映了殖民官员的偏见和无知,它们本身也是统治的工具,旨在按照殖民政权的意愿塑造社会现实:任何“逆向解读”都无法让我们真正了解底层民众的世界。在一篇颇具挑战性的文章《底层民众能说话吗?》中,斯皮瓦克引用了印度教中广为人知的殉夫习俗——萨蒂(sati )。萨蒂习俗要求寡妇在丈夫的葬礼柴堆上殉葬。历史研究详细记录了英国政府内部关于萨蒂习俗的辩论,这些辩论最终导致1833年官方正式取缔了萨蒂习俗,同时也记录了父权制传统主义者为保留萨蒂习俗而提出的论点,但受害者的声音却始终沉默不语。 31

There are also troubling questions to be asked about the colonial archive, which includes extensive documentation in the former colonies and also the national archives of the metropolitan countries. Not only did these archives reflect the prejudice and ignorance of colonial officials; they were instruments of rule, intended to mould social reality to the designs of the colonial regime: no amount of ‘reading against the grain’ can take us into the world of the subaltern. In a challenging article, ‘Can the subaltern speak?’, Spivak drew on the well-studied Hindu practice of sati, which placed on widows the duty of throwing themselves on the funeral pyre of their husbands. Historical research has documented in detail the debates within the British administration that led to the official proscription of sati in 1833, as well as the arguments mounted for its retention by patriarchal traditionalists, but the voice of the victims remains obdurately silent.31

后殖民批判的根源在于学术历史与民族国家之间的关系。由于历史学家通常关注国家的边界​​,即便他们并非直接记录国家本身的历史,他们的工作也实际上巩固了民族国家作为社会组织和政治身份首要范畴的地位。如果说这种批判在英国已然盛行,那么在印度这样的国家则更为切题,因为对“民族”的关注导致大量社会范畴被排除在历史议程之外。正如查克拉巴蒂所言,历史“在将所有其他人类团结的可能性纳入现代国家计划的过程中扮演了共谋者的角色”。 32西方史学的世俗主义也同样容易受到批判,因为它显然无法理解印度文化的精神内涵。一些后殖民主义学者甚至走得更远,他们认为启蒙运动传统的普世主张不过是西方对抗所有“他者”的辩护。33至少在理论上,这不仅为真正意义上的第三世界历史敞开了大门,也为看待西方的全新视角——查克拉巴蒂称之为“欧洲地方化”——敞开了大门。

At the root of the postcolonial critique lies the relationship between academic history and the nation-state. Because historians have generally observed the boundaries of states, even when they have not been chronicling the history of the state itself, their work has had the effect of validating the nation-state as the pre-eminent category of social organization and political identity. If critique along these lines is current in Britain, it is still more pertinent in a country like India, where the effect of a focus on ‘the nation’ is to exclude huge social categories from the agenda of history. As Chakrabarty has put it, history is complicit ‘in assimilating to the projects of the modern state all other possibilities of human solidarity’.32 The secularism of Western historiography is open to attack in comparable terms, as an ideological position that is manifestly unable to engage with the spirituality of Indian cultures. Some postcolonial scholars would go further still, dismissing the universal claims of the Enlightenment tradition as an apologia for the West against all its Others.33 In theory at least, the way is open not only for authentically Third World histories, but for entirely new perspectives on the West – what Chakrabarty calls the ‘provincializing of Europe’.

承认文化转向

Acknowledging the cultural turn

阅读迪佩什·查克拉巴蒂的后殖民史著作或琼·斯科特的性别史著作,会让人对当今大多数学者所实践的历史学科的未来产生怀疑。这些作者(以及其他与他们类似的作者)挑战了传统的学术理想,例如学术上的超脱、真实的再现和基于经验的分析,并猛烈抨击了那些信奉这些理想的人。这种语气与后现代主义者的语气相似,这并非偶然。我所描述的更为激进的性别和后殖民主义观点与后现代主义相符:事实上,琼·斯科特的理论著作通常被归入后现代主义范畴。然而,不应想当然地认为这些激进的批判在未来会成为学术界的普遍共识。大多数历史学家在实践中都对后殖民主义或性别理论的全部内涵有所回避。性别和后殖民主义对历史研究的影响,不应以理论上的精湛程度来衡量,而应以它们为学术领域带来的全新且富有启发性的视角来衡量。

To read Dipesh Chakrabarty on postcolonial history or Joan Scott on gender history is to doubt the future of the discipline of history as it is practised by most scholars today. These writers (and others like them) challenge the traditional academic ideals of scholarly detachment, authentic re-creation and empirically grounded analysis, and they roundly attack those who subscribe to them. The tone is similar to that adopted by Postmodernists, and that is no accident. The more radical views of gender and postcoloniality that I have described are compatible with Postmodernism: indeed Joan Scott’s theoretical writings are generally placed under that heading. However it should not be assumed that these radical critiques will become the received wisdom of the profession in the future. Working historians for the most part shrink from the full implications of postcolonial or gender theory. The influence of gender and postcolonialism on historical scholarship is to be measured not in theoretical virtuosity, but in the way they have projected new and illuminating perspectives into the scholarly arena.

与此同时,性别史和后殖民史的最新发展清晰地表明,拥抱文化转向会带来代价。社会分层的物质基础以及社会群体为实现其政治目标而展现的集体能动性,在这里几乎没有立足之地。权力——无论是对殖民地还是对从属性别——具有文化维度,但这并不意味着它本身就是一种文化现象学者们或许会被文字和图像的力量所迷惑,但对于他们研究的许多群体而言,权力是以鲜明的物质形式呈现的。这一事实在这些领域的第一代学者中比现在更为明显。在不丧失文化分析洞见的前提下,重新审视这一传统,正当其时。

At the same time, recent developments in gender history and postcolonial history clearly demonstrate the costs that are incurred by embracing the cultural turn. There is little place here for the material basis of social stratification or for the collective agency of social groups pursuing their political ends. The fact that power – whether exercised over a colony or over a subordinate sex – has a cultural dimension does not mean that it is a cultural phenomenon tout court. Academics may be beguiled by the power of words and images, but for many of the groups they study power was experienced in sharply material forms. That truth was more evident in the first generation of scholarship in these fields than it is now. A re-engagement with that tradition, without losing the insights of cultural analysis, would be timely.

家族史

The history of the family

性别史在这一领域做出了决定性的贡献。对许多人来说,“家族史”意味着追溯自己的族谱和祖先的个人信息。而历史学家则主要关注家庭作为社会基石的作用。早期的研究侧重于人口统计学,大量引用人口普查记录,重点关注家庭规模、人口迁徙以及与亲属的关系(例如,迈克尔·安德森的《十九世纪兰开夏郡的家庭结构》,1971年)。性别史学家则将目光聚焦于家庭,认为它是性别和性身份形成的关键场所。这促使研究方法发生转变,更加重视个人文献,例如信件和日记(例如,参见阿曼达·维克里)。《绅士的女儿》(1998)由于工人阶级家庭资料的稀缺性,工人阶级家庭的历史仍然相对滞后。

This is one of the areas where the history of gender has made a decisive contribution. For many people ‘family history’ means the recovery of their own genealogy and personal details about their ancestors. Historians, on the other hand, are chiefly interested in the family as a building block of society. The earliest studies were demographic; they drew heavily on the census records, focusing on family size, migration and relations with kin (as for example Michael Anderson, Family Structure in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire, 1971). Gender historians have put the spotlight on the family as the formative site in the acquisition of gender and sexual identities. This has involved a shift in research method, with a far greater emphasis on personal documents, such as letters and diaries (see, for example, Amanda Vickery, The Gentleman’s Daughter, 1998) The history of the working-class family still lags behind, because of the much greater scarcity of these materials.

南亚和非洲的独立

Independence in South Asia and Africa

1945年至1980年标志着欧洲殖民时代结束,结束了长达四个世纪的欧洲海外扩张。所有殖民列强——英国、法国、荷兰、葡萄牙和比利时——都放弃了各自的殖民地。有些是迫于民族解放运动的压力而撤离;有些则是出于希望未来能够继续保持影响力,体面地撤出。1947年英国从印度和巴基斯坦撤军时,爆发了严重的种族冲突。1957年加纳独立开启了快速的非殖民化进程,随后尼日利亚(1960年)、肯尼亚(1963年)以及其他许多国家也相继独立。津巴布韦(1980年)独立标志着这一阶段的结束。香港直到1997年才回归中国。

The period between 1945 and 1980 marked the end of the colonial era, after four centuries of European overseas expansion. All the colonial powers – Britain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium – abandoned their colonies. In some cases they were forced to do so by national liberation movements; in other cases they withdrew with a good grace in the hope of retaining influence in the future. The British withdrawal from India and Pakistan in 1947 was marked by severe communal violence. The independence of Ghana in 1957 set in train a rapid sequence of decolonization, leading to independence for Nigeria (1960), Kenya (1963) and many others countries. Independence for Zimbabwe (1980) marked the end of this phase. Hong Kong was not handed over to China until 1997.

东方主义

Orientalism

十八世纪,欧洲学者对“东方”的历史和文化产生了浓厚的兴趣。他们将“东方”这一概念应用于一个涵盖范围极广的地区,从北非和中东经印度次大陆一直延伸到中国和日本。文学学者爱德华·萨义德在其1978年出版的《东方主义》一书中指出,这种兴趣实际上反映了欧洲人对自身优越感的认知,他们认为东方是浪漫化且“神秘”的。

In the eighteenth century European scholars developed a keen interest in the history and culture of the ‘Orient’, a concept they applied to an area ranging from North Africa and the Middle East through the Indian subcontinent to China and Japan. In his 1978 book Orientalism, the literary scholar Edward Said argued that this interest in fact reflected the Europeans’ sense of their own superiority over what they saw as a romanticized and ‘mysterious’ East.

延伸阅读

Further reading

Laura Lee Downs《性别史写作》,Hodder Arnold出版社,2004年。

Laura Lee Downs, Writing Gender History, Hodder Arnold, 2004.

Joan W. Scott《性别与历史政治》,哥伦比亚大学出版社,1988 年。

Joan W. Scott, Gender and the Politics of History, Columbia University Press, 1988.

Bonnie G. Smith《历史的性别:男性、女性与历史实践》,哈佛大学出版社,1998 年。

Bonnie G. Smith, The Gender of History: Men, Women and Historical Practice, Harvard University Press, 1998.

John Tosh《十九世纪英国的男子气概和男性气质》,朗文出版​​社,2005年。

John Tosh, Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Longman, 2005.

Barbara Bush《帝国主义与后殖民主义》,朗文出版​​社,2006 年。

Barbara Bush, Imperialism and Postcolonialism, Longman, 2006.

爱德华·萨义德《东方主义》,第3版,企鹅出版社,2003年。

Edward Said, Orientalism, 3rd edn, Penguin, 2003.

Catherine Hall & Sonya O. Rose (编), 《与帝国同在:都市文化与帝国世界》,剑桥大学出版社,2006 年。

Catherine Hall & Sonya O. Rose (eds), At Home with the Empire: Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Catherine Hall(编),《帝国文化》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,2000 年。

Catherine Hall (ed.), Cultures of Empire, Manchester University Press, 2000.

Caroline Neale《书写“独立”历史:非洲史学,1960–1980》,格林伍德出版社,1985 年。

Caroline Neale, Writing ‘Independent’ History: African Historiography, 1960–1980, Greenwood Press, 1985.

Olwen Hufton《她面前的前景:1500-1800 年西欧女性史》,哈珀·柯林斯出版社,1995 年。

Olwen Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe, 1500–1800, Harper Collins, 1995.

笔记

Notes

  1   Jutta Schwarzkopf,《宪章运动中的妇女》,麦克米伦,1991 年。

  1  Jutta Schwarzkopf, Women in the Chartist Movement, Macmillan, 1991.

  2  例如,参见安吉拉·伍拉科特,《他们的生命取决于她:第一次世界大战中的军需工人》,加州大学出版社,1994 年。

  2  See for example, Angela Woollacott, On Her Their Lives Depend: Munitions Workers in the Great War, University of California Press, 1994.

  3   Peter Laslett 和 Richard Wall(编),《过去时代的家庭和家族》,剑桥大学出版社,1972 年。

  3  Peter Laslett and Richard Wall (eds), Household and Family in Past Time, Cambridge University Press, 1972.

  4   Leonore Davidoff 和 Catherine Hall,《家族财富:英国中产阶级的男男女女,1780–1850》,第 2 版,Hutchinson,2002 年。

  4  Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850, 2nd edn, Hutchinson, 2002.

  5  希拉·罗伯瑟姆、萨莉·亚历山大和芭芭拉·泰勒在拉斐尔·塞缪尔(编)的《人民的历史与社会主义理论》 (Routledge & Kegan Paul,1981 年,第 363-373 页)中对父权制的利弊进行了经典的阐述。

  5  The classic airing of the pros and cons of patriarchy is the short interventions of Sheila Rowbotham, Sally Alexander and Barbara Taylor in Raphael Samuel (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, pp. 363–73.

  6   Jane Lewis(编),《劳动与爱:1850-1940 年女性的家庭和家庭经验》,Blackwell 出版社,1986 年,编者导言,第 4 页。另见 John Tosh,“历史学家应该如何看待男性气质?对十九世纪英国的反思”,《历史工作坊杂志》 ,第 38 卷,1994 年,第 179-202 页。

  6  Jane Lewis (ed.), Labour and Love: Women’s Experience of Home and Family 1850–1940, Blackwell, 1986, editor’s introduction, p. 4. See also John Tosh, ‘What should historians do with masculinity? Reflections on nineteenth-century Britain’, History Workshop Journal, XXXVIII, 1994, pp. 179–202.

  7   George L. Mosse,《男性的形象:现代男性气质的创造》,牛津大学出版社,1996 年,第 6 章

  7  George L. Mosse, The Image of Men: The Creation of Modern Masculinity, Oxford University Press, 1996, ch. 6.

  8   Alexandra Shepard,《早期现代英国的男子气概》,牛津大学出版社,2003 年;John Tosh,《十九世纪英国的男子气概和男性气质》,朗文出版​​社,2005 年;Davidoff 和 Hall,《家族财富》。

  8  Alexandra Shepard, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England, Oxford University Press, 2003; John Tosh, Manliness and Masculinities in Nineteenth-Century Britain, Longman, 2005; Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes.

  9   Roy Porter 和 Lesley Hall,《生活的事实:1650-1950 年英国性知识的创造》,耶鲁大学出版社,1995 年,第 2 章;John Tosh,《男人的地位:维多利亚时代英国的男性气质和中产阶级家庭》,耶鲁大学出版社,1999 年。

  9  Roy Porter and Lesley Hall, The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650–1950, Yale University Press, 1995, ch. 2; John Tosh, A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England, Yale University Press, 1999.

10  有关拉康对性别史学家的影响的讨论,请参阅 Sally Alexander 的《成为女人及其他 19 世纪和 20 世纪女权主义史论文集》,Virago 出版社,1994 年,第 105-10 页、225-30 页。

10  For a discussion of the implications of Lacan for gender historians, see Sally Alexander, Becoming a Woman and Other Essays in 19th and 20th Century Feminist History, Virago, 1994, pp. 105–10, 225–30.

11  医学领域的经典著作是托马斯·拉克尔的《性:从希腊人到弗洛伊德的身体与性别》,哈佛大学出版社,1990 年。关于法律方法,参见哈里·科克斯的《无名罪行:19 世纪的同性恋欲望》,IB Tauris 出版社,2003 年,以及肖恩·布雷迪的《英国的男性气质与男性同性恋,1861-1913》,帕尔格雷夫·麦克米伦出版社,2005 年,第 4 章

11  The classic work in the medical category is Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, Harvard University Press, 1990. For the legal approach, see Harry Cocks, Nameless Offences: Homosexual Desire in the 19th Century, I.B. Tauris, 2003, and Sean Brady, Masculinity and Male Homosexuality in Britain, 1861–1913, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, ch. 4.

12   Matt Houlbrook,《酷儿伦敦:性都市的危险与乐趣,1918-1957》,芝加哥大学出版社,2005 年。

12  Matt Houlbrook, Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918–1957, Chicago University Press, 2005.

13   Joan W. Scott,“性别:历史分析的一个有用范畴”,《美国历史评论》,第91卷,1986年,第1053-1075页。

13  Joan W. Scott, ‘Gender: a Useful Category of Historical Analysis’, American Historical Review, XCI, 1986, pp. 1053–75.

14   Stefan Collini,“维多利亚时代政治思想中的‘性格’观念”,皇家历史学会会刊,第5辑,XXXV,1985年,第29-50页。

14  Stefan Collini, ‘The idea of “character” in Victorian political thought’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, XXXV, 1985, pp. 29–50.

15   Judith R. Walkowitz,《卖淫与维多利亚时代的社会》,剑桥大学出版社,1980 年,第 ix 页。

15  Judith R. Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society, Cambridge University Press, 1980, p. ix.

16   Susan Pedersen,“比较历史与女性历史:解释趋同与分歧”,载于 Deborah Cohen 和 Maura O'Connor(编),《比较与历史:欧洲的跨国视角》,Routledge,2004 年,第 95 页。

16  Susan Pedersen, ‘Comparative history and women’s history: explaining convergence and divergence’, in Deborah Cohen and Maura O’Connor (eds), Comparison and History: Europe in Cross-National Perspective, Routledge, 2004, p. 95.

17  爱德华·萨义德,《东方主义》,第二版,1995年,第354页。萨义德的观点一直备受争议。关于历史学家的评论,请参见约翰·M·麦肯齐,《东方主义:历史、理论与艺术》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,1995年。

17  Edward Said, Orientalism, 2nd edn, 1995, p. 354. Said’s views have proved controversial. For a critique by a historian, see John M. MacKenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts, Manchester University Press, 1995.

18   Stephen Howe,《非洲中心主义:神话般的过去和想象的家园》,Verso 出版社,1998 年。

18  Stephen Howe, Afrocentrism: Mythical Pasts and Imagined Homes, Verso, 1998.

19   Homi K. Bhabha,《文化的位置》,Routledge出版社,1994年。

19  Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, Routledge, 1994.

20  同上。

20  Ibid.

21  这两个方面都出现在 20 世纪 70 年代的一部重要著作中:约翰·伊利夫,《坦噶尼喀现代史》,剑桥大学出版社,1979 年。

21  Both these strands feature in a major work of the 1970s: John Iliffe, The Modern History of Tanganyika, Cambridge University Press, 1979.

22  笔者也应被列入这些天真的田野调查员之列。参见约翰·托什,《兰戈的氏族领袖和殖民地酋长》,牛津大学出版社,1978 年。

22  The present writer must be numbered among these naïve fieldworkers. See John Tosh, Clan Leaders and Colonial Chiefs in Lango, Oxford University Press, 1978.

23   Ranajit Guha,《殖民地印度农民起义的基本方面》,牛津大学出版社,1983 年,第 14-16 页。

23  Ranajit Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, Oxford University Press, 1983, pp. 14–16.

24  安托瓦内特·伯顿(编),《帝国转向之后:与国家一起思考和通过国家思考》,杜克大学出版社,2003 年,编者导言,第 3 页。

24  Antoinette Burton (ed.), After the Imperial Turn: Thinking With and Through the Nation, Duke University Press, 2003, editor’s introduction, p. 3.

25   Antoinette Burton,“谁需要国家?质疑‘英国’历史”,载 Catherine Hall(编),《帝国文化》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,2000 年。

25  Antoinette Burton, ‘Who needs the nation? Interrogating “British” history’, in Catherine Hall (ed.), Cultures of Empire, Manchester University Press, 2000.

26   Paul Gilroy,《帝国之后:忧郁的文化还是欢愉的文化?》,Routledge,2004 年。

26  Paul Gilroy, After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture?, Routledge, 2004.

27   Catherine Hall,“历史、帝国和后殖民时刻”,载于 Iain Chambers 和 Lidia Curti(编),《后殖民问题》,Routledge,1996 年,第 70 页。

27  Catherine Hall, ‘Histories, empires and the post-colonial moment’, in Iain Chambers and Lidia Curti (eds), The Post-Colonial Question, Routledge, 1996, p. 70.

28   Moira Ferguson,《从玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特到詹姆斯·金凯德的殖民主义与性别关系》,哥伦比亚大学出版社,1993 年,第 8-33 页。

28  Moira Ferguson, Colonialism and Gender Relations from Mary Wollstonecraft to James Kincaid, Columbia University Press, 1993, pp. 8–33.

29   John Marriott,《另一个帝国:殖民想象中的大都会、印度和进步》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,2003 年,第 6 章

29  John Marriott, The Other Empire: Metropolis, India and Progress in the Colonial Imagination, Manchester University Press, 2003, ch. 6.

30   Dipesh Chakrabarty,“后殖民性与历史的虚构:谁代表‘印度’的过去?”,《表象》 ,第 XXXVII 卷,1992 年,第 1-3 页。

30  Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘Postcoloniality and the artifice of history: who speaks for “Indian” pasts?’, Representations, XXXVII, 1992, pp. 1–3.

31   GC Spivak,“底层人民能说话吗?”,载于 Patrick Williams 和 Laura Chrisman(编),《殖民话语与后殖民理论:读本》,Harvester Wheatsheaf 出版社,1993 年,第 94-104 页。

31  G.C. Spivak, ‘Can the subaltern speak?’, in Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (eds), Colonial Discourse and Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993, pp. 94–104.

32   Chakrabarty,《后殖民性》,第 23 页。

32  Chakrabarty, ‘Postcoloniality’, p. 23.

33   Ashis Nandy,《历史上被遗忘的双重身份》,《历史与理论》,专题第 34 期,1995 年。

33  Ashis Nandy, ‘History’s forgotten doubles’, History and Theory, theme issue 34, 1995.

第十一章

Chapter Eleven

记忆与口语

Memory and the spoken word

历史既是一种记忆形式,也是一门以记忆为史料的学科。如今,关于历史本质的一些最具成效的讨论正是在这一领域展开的。本章首先探讨纪念文化,然后深入研究口述历史的实践,即通过访谈人们的记忆来了解他们的经历。口述史料对社会史,尤其是非洲前殖民时期历史产生了重大影响。这类史料能让人感受到触及“真实”过去的激动人心,但它也像其他任何类型的历史史料一样,充满了陷阱和困难。历史学家应该向口述史料提出哪些问题?他们自身又在口述史料的形成过程中扮演着怎样的角色?

History is both a form of memory and a discipline that draws on memory as source material. Today some of the most productive discussions about the nature of history are pursued in this area. This chapter looks at the culture of commemoration before examining in more depth the practice of oral history, in which people are interviewed about their memories. Oral sources have had a major impact on social history, and on the pre-colonial history of Africa. Such material can give an exhilarating sense of touching the ‘real’ past, but it is as full of pitfalls and difficulties as any other sort of historical material. What questions should historians ask of oral material, and what role do they themselves play in its creation?

T本书以历史与记忆的关系为开篇,又回到了结尾。在第一章中,我指出学术历史可以被视为一种记忆形式,因为它为社会提供了关于过去经验的最佳记录。但这并不意味着历史与其他形式的记忆之间不应存在区别。“社会记忆”或“集体记忆”指的是关于过去的叙事和假设,它们阐释或解释了我们今天所知的社会的关键特征。在浩如烟海的可追溯的过去知识中,社会记忆优先考虑那些能够验证当下文化价值观或政治忠诚的材料,有时甚至违背了关于过去的现有证据。另一方面,学术历史则坚持两个关键原则:对过去的研究必须基于对过去的理解。历史不应仅仅反映我们自身的关注点,而应特别关注那些与我们经验迥异甚至截然不同的事物;所有历史诠释都应接受证据的严格检验。简而言之,历史学科的标准和社会角色都取决于它是否能与社会记忆保持距离。

This book ends where it began, with the relationship between history and memory. In Chapter 1 I pointed out that academic history can be regarded as a form of memory, in that it provides society with the best available record of past experience. But that does not mean that no distinction should be made between history and other forms of memory. ‘Social memory’, or ‘collective memory’, refers to the stories and assumptions about the past that illustrate – or account for – key features of the society we know today. Out of the limitless stock of recoverable knowledge about the past, social memory prioritizes material that validates cultural values or political loyalties in the present, sometimes in the teeth of the available evidence about the past. Academic history, on the other hand, insists on two key principles; that the study of the past should not simply mirror our own preoccupations, but should pay special attention to what is different and remote from our experience; and that all historical interpretation should be rigorously tested against the evidence. In short, both the standards and the social role of the discipline of history depend on its standing apart from social memory.

然而,这些区别并不意味着其他形式的记忆对历史学家而言无关紧要。如今,历史学家对两种记忆形式尤为关注。一种是大众文化中流传的集体记忆,另一种则是个人对其自身经历的记忆,这些记忆通常由历史学家主动收集。这两种记忆形式在真实回忆与事后记忆的重塑之间取得了不同的平衡。它们都以不同的方式展现了被记忆的过去所蕴含的巨大文化意义。

However these distinctions do not mean that other forms of memory are of no consequence to historians. Historians today are keenly interested in two forms of memory. Collective representations of the past as they circulate in popular culture are one focus of interest. The other is the memories of individuals about their own lifetime, often solicited by the historian. Each of these strikes a different balance between authentic recall and the remodelling of memory after the event. Each in different ways demonstrates the immense cultural significance of the remembered past.

I

集体记忆

Collective memory

一个社群——无论是国家层面还是地方层面——如何看待其过去,决定了它对社会的理解和政治意识。所有社会都依赖于远超当代成员年龄的记忆。更遥远的过去并非局限于历史书籍和档案馆;它也存在于大众意识中,通过各种纪念活动得以滋养,并被记录在各种媒体上。这些构成了社会或集体的记忆。在此,过去与现在的关系呈现出两种互补的形式。首先,社会记忆通常至少能部分地揭示过去发生的事情,而这种历史知识影响着大众对当下的理解。同时,集体记忆也是当下的一面镜子,反映着当下在时间维度上的关注点,这意味着它会随着时间的推移而发生微妙的——有时甚至是显著的——变化。历史学家对社会记忆的研究始于这样一个假设:其内容会与他们专业的历史理解有所不同,但正是这种差异为我们理解大众记忆的构建提供了线索。如果说书面历史代表了对过去历史的精选,认为这些历史值得铭记,那么集体记忆则是一种更为彻底的简化,旨在强化文化认同或潜在的自主性。正如詹姆斯·芬特雷斯和克里斯·威克姆所说,“社会记忆并非以信息的形式稳定存在;相反,它在共享意义和记忆图像的层面上是稳定的” 。¹

How a community – whether national or local – visualizes its past conditions its understanding of society and its political consciousness. All societies draw on memories that extend further back than the lifetime of its present-day members. The more remote past is not confined to history books and archives; it is present also in popular consciousness, fed by a variety of commemorative activities and recorded in a variety of media. These constitute the social or collective memory of the society. Here the relationship between past and present takes two complementary forms. First, social memory usually gives at least partial access to what happened in the past, and this historical knowledge conditions popular understanding of the present. At the same time collective memory is also a mirror of the present, reflecting its concerns in time perspective, which means that it is subtly – sometimes not so subtly – modified over time. Historians’ study of social memory starts from the assumption that its content will diverge from their professional understanding of the past, but that that very divergence provides clues about the construction of popular memory. If written history represents a selection of the past thought worthy of recall, collective memory is an even more drastic simplification, designed to reinforce a cultural identity or a potential for agency in the present. As James Fentress and Chris Wickham put it, ‘social memory is not stable as information; it is stable, rather, at the level of shared meanings and remembered images’.1

集体记忆对社会融合的贡献在那些文字出现之前的社会中最为明显,这些社会对过去的认知完全依赖于代代相传的口头叙述。尽管在高度工业化的国家,口头传统几乎已经消亡,但在那些文字尚未取代以口头文化为主的国家,它仍然是一种鲜活的力量。口头传统传递着强烈的文化真实性。然而,只有将其视为二手资料,才能充分理解其历史意义,因为证词与其所叙述的事件或经历之间并无直接联系。

The contribution of collective memory to social integration is clearest in those pre-literate societies whose knowledge of the past is wholly dependent on spoken narratives handed down from one generation to the next. Although practically extinct in highly industrialized countries, oral tradition is still a living force in those countries where literacy has not yet displaced a predominantly oral culture. Oral tradition conveys a strong aura of cultural authenticity. But its historical significance can only be fully grasped if it is treated as a secondary source, since there is no direct link between the testimony and the event or experience which it purports to recount.

在许多非洲社会,族群认同、社会地位、政治职位和土地权利仍然依赖于口头传统来确立;在西方社会会以书面文件形式确立的事物,在口头社会中则源于活人的记忆。20世纪50年代,非洲历史学家开始评估口头传统的历史内涵,并制定收集和解读口头传统的程序。他们收集了详尽的传统文献,根据谱系推算,这些文献可以追溯到四五个世纪以前,其中包含了具体人物及其事迹——这正是传统史学的素材。他们发现,在一些较为中央集权的酋邦,传统的传承是由训练有素的专家背诵固定文本完成的;在一些社会中,诸如皇家陵墓或王室服饰之类的实物遗迹被用作记忆辅助工具,以确保人们能够按正确的顺序记住早期统治者的统治。这一发现极大地增强了他们对传统可靠性的信心。他们认为,评估正式口头传统所需的方法与评估书面文件所需的方法在原则上并无二致。2口头传统似乎直接通往一个此前不为人知的过去——而且是用一种西方文字未曾触及的语言表达的。

In many African societies ethnic identity, social status, claims to political office and rights in land are still validated by appeals to oral tradition; what in Western society would be formalized by written documents, in oral societies derives its authority from the memories of the living. In the 1950s historians in Africa began to evaluate oral tradition for its historical content and to lay down procedures for its collection and interpretation. They collected detailed bodies of tradition which by genealogical reckoning extended back four or five centuries, complete with named individuals and their exploits – the very stuff of conventional historiography. Their faith in the reliability of the traditions was greatly strengthened by the discovery that in some of the more centralized chiefdoms the transmission of tradition was the business of trained specialists reciting fixed texts; in some societies material relics such as royal tombs or regalia were used as mnemonic devices to ensure that the reigns of earlier rulers were recalled in correct sequence. It was maintained that the methods required to evaluate a formal oral tradition were in principle no different from those required by written documents.2 Oral tradition, it appeared, gave direct access to a hitherto unknown past – and in an idiom untouched by Western literacy.

记忆法

mnemonic

记忆辅助工具。

An aid to memory.

口头传统的作用

The role of oral tradition

对口头传统的更深入体验以及对口头社会本质的反思很快表明,这种观点远非如此简单明了。特别是,将其与书面文本进行类比……文章深入剖析了口头传统传承中表演这一要素。如同世界各地的说书人一样,传统讲述者们敏锐地感知着听众的氛围,并了解他们的接受程度。每一次故事的复述都可能与前一次有所不同,因为内容会根据社会期望进行微妙的调整。传统并非依靠那些拥有某种超乎常人理解的神秘能力,能够毫不费力地记住伟大史诗和故事列表的说书人而得以延续;它们之所以能够流传下来,是因为它们对特定文化具有意义。

Longer experience of oral tradition and reflection on the nature of oral society soon showed that the position was not nearly so straightforward. In particular, the analogy with written texts broke down on the element of performance that characterizes the transmission of oral tradition. Like story-tellers everywhere, the performers of a tradition are alert to the atmosphere among their audience and their sense of what is acceptable to them. Each retelling of the story is likely to diverge from the one before, as the content becomes subtly adjusted to social expectations. Traditions are not kept alive by story-tellers who, by some mysterious faculty beyond the grasp of literate people, are able to remember great epics and lists without effort; they are handed down because they hold meaning for the culture concerned.

总的来说,非洲的口头传统发挥着两种社会功能。首先,它们传授构成文化核心的价值观和信仰——例如,人与动物之间恰当的关系,或者亲属姻亲之间的义务。其次,它们有助于验证当前盛行的特定社会和政治安排——土地分配、某个强大血统对酋长之位的主张,或者与邻近民族的关系模式。当一项传统传承四五代之后,其社会功能很可能已经对其内容进行了相当大的改变,例如,删减不再相关的细节,并丰富故事中的修辞或象征元素。而且,随着社会或政治环境的变化在口头传统中留下印记,这个过程可以无限期地持续下去。有时,这些调整是经过深思熟虑的。在刚果的库巴人中,王朝传统只有在经过一个显贵委员会私下仔细审查后才能被讲述;正如其中一人所说,“过了一段时间,古老故事的真相发生了变化。以前是真的,后来都变成了假的。” ³

Broadly speaking, oral traditions in Africa fulfil two social functions. First, they teach the values and beliefs that are integral to the culture – the proper relationship between humans and animals, for example, or the obligations of kinship and affinity. Second, they serve to validate the particular social and political arrangements that currently prevail – the distribution of land, the claims of one powerful lineage to the chiefship, or the pattern of relations with a neighbouring people. By the time a tradition has been handed down over four or five generations, its social function is likely to have modified the content considerably, by suppressing detail that no longer seems relevant, and by elaborating the rhetorical or symbolic elements in the story. And this process can continue indefinitely, as changes in social or political circumstances leave their imprint on the corpus of oral tradition. Sometimes these adjustments are made quite deliberately. Among the Kuba people of the Congo a dynastic tradition could only be recounted after its content had been carefully vetted in private by a council of notables; as one of them put it, ‘After a while, the truth of the old tales changed. What was true before, became false afterwards’.3

亲属关系

kinship

血缘关系,例如父母与子女之间,或兄弟姐妹之间。

Ties of blood, as between parents and children, or brothers and sisters.

亲和力

affinity

通过婚姻建立的关系:因此,姻亲可以被称为“姻亲”。

Relationships through marriage: thus one’s in-laws can be referred to as ‘affines’.

口头传统对受众需求的敏感性以及书面文字的权威性,在1966年美国黑人作家亚历克斯·哈利前往冈比亚寻找其奴隶出身的祖先昆塔·金特的经历中得到了淋漓尽致的体现。尽管该地区的口头传统中没有关于19世纪以前真实人物的信息,哈利还是找到了一位长者,这位长者讲述了一个关于昆塔·金特在18世纪中期被“国王的士兵”掳为奴隶的传说。哈利毫不掩饰自己的故事和寻找目标,而这个“传说”显然是为他编造的。几年后,由于媒体的报道……在海莉的畅销书《根》(1976年)出版前后,更多传统专家得以生动地讲述昆塔·金特的故事。4

The sensitivity of oral tradition to the demands of its audience and the prestige of the written word was strikingly borne out when the black American writer Alex Haley went to the Gambia in 1966 in search of his slave-boy ancestor, Kunta Kinte. Although the oral traditions current in the region do not contain information about real people before the nineteenth century, Haley duly found an elder who recited a tradition about the boy’s capture into slavery by ‘the king’s soldiers’ in the mid-eighteenth century. Haley had made no secret of his story and what he was looking for, and there seems little doubt that the ‘tradition’ was concocted for him. Several years later, as a result of the publicity surrounding Haley’s best-selling book Roots (1976), many more specialists in tradition were able to recite the story of Kunta Kinte with further lively embellishments.4

对口头传统的诠释

The interpretation of oral tradition

因此,利用口述传统进行历史重建会引发诸多问题。它们不仅大多是旨在教化后世的叙事——因此在历史学家的史料层级中地位较低(见上文第93-96页);而且,为了使其意义更贴近受众不断变化的期望,这些口述传统也一直在被反复修改。结果是,历史学家现在对口述传统的真实性持非常谨慎的态度。另一方面,情况并非完全负面。当研究者面对单一的口述传统体系时,对口述传统的批评最为有力。但是,如果存在一系列相关的口述传统,则可以进行历史学家在研究书面史料时早已习惯的那种比较评价。当扬·范西纳研究卢旺达前殖民时期的历史时,他发现了一套根深蒂固的皇家传统,这些传统在宫廷中被反复背诵,后来被出版成权威的史料。正是对更为广泛的传统进行梳理,才使他能够批判官方版本,并重构十九世纪王国的历史。⁵口述传统对历史学家的价值不仅限于回顾性重构。它的价值既体现在历史层面,也体现在文化层面。在文字出现之前的社群中,记忆中的过去服务于当下。它如同画布,社群的政治和社会价值观在其上被象征性地、简洁地勾勒出来。

Using oral traditions for historical reconstruction therefore raises major problems. Not only are they mostly narratives intended for the edification of posterity – and thus rather low down in the historian’s hierarchy of sources (see above, pp. 93–96); they have also been constantly reworked to relate their meaning more closely to the changing expectations of their audience. The result is that historians are now very cautious about accepting the veracity of oral tradition. On the other hand, the picture is by no means uniformly negative. Criticisms of oral tradition have most force when the researcher is confronted by a single body of tradition. But a cluster of related traditions opens the path to the kind of comparative evaluation that historians are well accustomed to practise in the case of written sources. When Jan Vansina tackled the pre-colonial history of Rwanda he found a well-established body of royal traditions which had been learned by heart in the royal court and later published as the definitive account. It was the recovery of a much wider cross-section of traditions that enabled him to critique the official version and to reconstruct the nineteenth-century history of the kingdom.5 But the value of oral tradition to the historian is not limited to retrospective reconstruction. Its value is as much cultural as historical. In preliterate communities the remembered past is placed at the service of the present. It resembles a canvas on which the political and social values of the community are symbolically and succinctly delineated.

卢旺达

Rwanda

前殖民时期的卢旺达是 19 世纪 90 年代建立的德国殖民地的核心,并于 1919 年移交给比利时。自 1962 年独立以来,卢旺达的历史一直以胡图族和图西族之间的冲突为标志——这是比利时人推行的分而治之政策的遗留问题。

The pre-colonial state of Rwanda formed the nucleus of the German colony founded in the 1890s, and transferred to Belgium in 1919. Since independence in 1962, the history of Rwanda has been marked by strife between the Hutu and the Tutsi – the legacy of divide-and-rule policies pursued by the Belgians.

II

国家和地方记忆

National and local memory

非洲的口头文化似乎与西方的历史意识相去甚远,但口头传统在西方也占有一席之地。不同之处在于,口头传承必须与书面文字和视觉文化(如电影和电视)的权威性和普遍性相抗衡。因此,它逐渐成为……人们通常对“集体记忆”的定义更为宽泛,不仅包括口述历史,还包括人们普遍接受的关于过去的各种版本,无论其来源如何。例如,英国对两次世界大战的主流集体记忆。第一次世界大战被铭记为“邪恶的战争”:一场无尽的悲剧,一代年轻人被卷入徒劳的屠杀,而他们的牺牲并非出于任何原则。相反,第二次世界大战则被描绘成一部英雄史诗,以1940年英国的“辉煌时刻”和丘吉尔的卓越领导为象征。诚然,老兵讲述的故事具有特殊的威望,但真正维系这些记忆的,是大众文化的丰富资源:媒体、故事片、纪录片、博物馆、战争纪念碑和纪念游行(例如阵亡将士纪念日的游行)。这些战争记忆的文化意义显而易见。他们的观点不仅表达了当时英国人的身份认同,也表达了如今英国人应有的身份认同,因此,他们对历史学术发展充耳不闻。由此可见,任何修正主义都无法将第一次世界大战重新定义为一场捍卫自由民主的斗争,或是英国军队的决定性胜利。至于第二次世界大战,英国对盟军胜利的贡献仍然被夸大,而丘吉尔的英名却丝毫未受其反复无常、有时甚至灾难性的军事领导能力所玷污。这些观点在未亲身经历过两次世界大战的中青年群体中如此盛行,恰恰体现了集体记忆的道德力量。它的真正作用在于为国家利益和民族性格提供借鉴。6

Oral culture in Africa may seem a world away from historical consciousness in the West, but oral tradition has its place here too. The difference is that oral transmission has to contend with the authority and prevalence of both the written word and visual culture (such as film and television). Hence it has become customary to define ‘collective memory’ in a broader sense to include not only what is recounted in oral narratives, but the commonly accepted versions of the past, whatever their provenance. Consider, for example, the dominant collective memories of the two World Wars in Britain. The First World War is remembered as the ‘bad war’: an unrelieved tragedy in which a generation of young men was led to futile slaughter, unredeemed by principled motives. Conversely, the Second World War is cast as a heroic epic, symbolized by Britain’s ‘finest hour’ in 1940 and Churchill’s inspired leadership. While it is true that the stories told by veterans have a special prestige, what chiefly sustains these memories is the full resources of popular culture: the media, feature films, documentaries, museums, war memorials and commemorative parades (such as those on Remembrance Sunday). The cultural significance of these memories of war is no less clear. They express a view of not only what it meant to be British then, but what it should mean to be British now, and for that reason they are impervious to developments in historical scholarship. Thus no amount of revisionism seems able to rehabilitate the First World War as a struggle to preserve liberal democracy, or as a decisive victory for British arms. As regards the Second World War, Britain’s contribution to the allied victory continues to be inflated, while the memory of Churchill remains untarnished by the mounting evidence of his erratic and sometimes disastrous military leadership. The fact that these views are so prevalent among the young and middle-aged who did not actually experience either of the wars demonstrates the moral power of collective memory. Its true function is to provide lessons in the national interest and the national character.6

与此同时,不应假定所有人都认同此类民族记忆。阶级、地域和宗教都可能产生与主流公共记忆截然不同的记忆。在18世纪初的天主教法国,新教徒卡米萨尔派起义反抗皇家军队,进行了长达两年的游击战。这段经历至今仍主导着该地区的口头文化,在家庭和村庄的口口相传中不断被提及。卡米萨尔起义不仅是集体记忆的关键事件,也是衡量后续事件是否值得铭记的标准。当地传统对法国大革命或第一次世界大战鲜有记载;而对抵抗运动却有着重要的历史意义。当时,第二次世界大战被视为卡米萨尔英雄主义的重现,而它在近代记忆中的地位也证实了这种联系。在这种情况下,集体记忆呈现出一种对立的形式,表达了一个地方群体在民族文化背景下维护自身身份认同的决心。7

At the same time, it should not be assumed that everyone subscribes to national memories of this kind. Class, locality and religion can each generate memories that are sharply at variance with the dominant public memory. In Catholic France at the beginning of the eighteenth century the Protestant Camisards rebelled against the royal army, fighting a guerilla war for two years. That experience dominates the oral culture of the region to this day, in re-tellings in family and village. The Camisard revolt is not only the key event of collective memory, but the standard that determines which subsequent events are worthy of recall. Local tradition has little or nothing to say about the French Revolution or the First World War; on the other hand the Resistance during the Second World War was seen then as a reprise of Camisard heroism, and its place in recent memory confirms that link. In this instance collective memory has taken an oppositional form, expressing the determination of a local group to retain its own identity vis-à-vis the national culture.7

卡米萨尔人之所以拥有如此持久而连贯的传统,部分原因在于他们居住的塞文山脉地处偏远,交通不便。直到最近,代际传承相对自由,该地区的文化资源得以独立发展。但在西方世界的大部分地区,这种情况早已不复存在。像英国这样的国家如今人口流动性极高,商业媒体的影响力也日益增强。老年人的权威性降低,他们对历史的讲述也难以引起年轻人的兴趣。口述传统在集体记忆中的地位不断下降,因此,它作为研究重点的价值也大大降低。记忆研究的重点正逐渐转向其他历史意识的指标。

Part of the reason why there is such an enduring and coherent tradition among the Camisards is that the Cevennes, where they live, is mountainous and inaccessible. Until recently there was comparatively free transmission between generations, and the region was thrown on its own cultural resources. In most parts of the Western world those conditions have long ceased to apply. Countries like Britain now experience high levels of spatial mobility and also the intrusive power of the commercialized media. Less authority is accorded to the elderly, and their renditions of the past are of less interest to the young. The place of oral tradition in collective memory has been steadily declining, and consequently it has become much less rewarding as a focus of research. Instead the emphasis in memory studies is tending to shift to other indicators of historical consciousness.

周年纪念日和集体记忆

Anniversaries and collective memory

这种转变的一个方面是纪念仪式。大多数国家都会庆祝国庆日,以纪念该国历史上具有塑造性或象征意义的事件。在法国,7月14日(巴士底日)的庆祝活动概括了法国大革命在过去一个世纪中逐渐成为国家自我认同核心的过程。在塞尔维亚,6月28日——1389年科索沃战役中,塞尔维亚中世纪帝国被奥斯曼土耳其人击败的日子——则被赋予了更大的意义。这场战役象征性地体现了塞尔维亚人勇敢但饱受围困的自我形象;由于科索沃位于如今塞尔维亚核心地区的南部,这一纪念日有可能像20世纪90年代摧毁南斯拉夫的战争期间那样,再次激起塞尔维亚的领土扩张之火。科索沃”已成为一种信仰,表达了一种神圣的历史观。即使没有如此强烈的民族主义意识形态,纪念日也鲜明地表达了支撑集体记忆的政治选择原则。

One aspect of this shift is commemorative ritual. Most countries celebrate a national day which falls on the anniversary of a formative or symbolic event in the nation’s history. In France the celebration of 14 July (Bastille Day) sums up the process whereby the French Revolution has over the last century become central to the national self-image. In Serbia even greater weight is given to 28 June – the day when the medieval empire of Serbia was crushed by the Ottoman Turks at Kosovo Polje in 1389. Symbolically that battle exemplifies the Serb self-image as a brave but beleaguered people; and because Kosovo lies to the south of the present Serbian heartland, the anniversary has the potential to stoke the fires of Serb territorial expansion, as happened during the wars that destroyed Yugoslavia during the 1990s.8 ‘Kosovo’ is an article of faith, expressing a sacramental view of the past. Even without such a strong nationalist ideology, anniversaries starkly express the principles of political selection that underpin collective memory.

在这方面,英国很特殊。英国没有全国性的节日,英格兰也没有(尽管苏格兰有)。(威尔士)。过去人们庆祝的周年纪念日,例如1688年光荣革命或维多利亚女王登基纪念日,如今已逐渐消失。现存的主要纪念日也失去了其历史和意识形态意义。11月5日的篝火之夜是为了纪念1605年的火药阴谋,当时天主教阴谋者盖伊·福克斯被捕,使詹姆斯一世及其议会得以在千钧一发之际脱险。阴谋者们刚被审判并处决不久,议会就下令每个教区都要举行教堂礼拜来纪念这一周年。民众参与礼拜的动机既是对上帝恩典的感恩,也是对国内外天主教徒的强烈仇恨。但到了十九世纪中叶,反天主教的偏见已大不如前,法定感恩仪式也在1859年被废除。如今的篝火之夜已完全失去了任何历史渊源,也无人再将其视为国庆日。除了标志着冬季的到来之外,它的象征意义已然贫乏——尽管人们或许还会补充一点,它也体现了英国人对正式的民族历史回顾的相对漠不关心

In this respect Britain is unusual. There is no national day, and none for England either (though there are days for Scotland and Wales). Anniversaries that were observed in the past, like the Glorious Revolution of 1688 or the accession of Queen Victoria, have withered away. The main one that survives has also shed its historical and ideological associations. Bonfire Night on 5 November commemorates the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when the arrest of the Catholic conspirator, Guy Fawkes, delivered James I and his Parliament in the nick of time. Barely had the conspirators been tried and executed than Parliament ordained that the anniversary should be marked by church services in every parish. Popular participation was based on gratitude for the mercy of Divine Providence, and a consuming hatred for Catholics, whether at home or abroad. But by the mid-nineteenth century anti-Catholic prejudice was a shadow of its former self, and the statutory service of thanksgiving was dropped in 1859. Bonfire Night today lacks any historical referent at all, and no one any longer supposes that it is a national day. It has become symbolically impoverished, except perhaps in marking the onset of winter – though one might add that it also bears witness to the comparative indifference of the English to formal invocations of their national history.9

法国国庆日是7月14日。法国各地举行的游行是为了纪念1789年攻占巴士底狱,这一事件拉开了法国大革命的序幕。巴士底狱已成为除保皇党以外所有法国人都能接受的共同象征。(Getty Images/AFP)

France’s national day is 14 July. The parades held all over France commemorate the storming of the Bastille, which began the French Revolution in 1789. It has become a common symbol acceptable to all French people, except monarchists. (Getty Images/AFP)

石头上的记忆

Memories in stone

公众纪念活动也以纪念碑和雕像等物质形式呈现。大多数首都城市都设有许多此类历史遗迹,通常旨在增强民族自豪感。在伦敦,最著名的例子是白金汉宫外的维多利亚女王纪念碑和特拉法加广场,后者是为了纪念军事和海军英雄而建。与口头传统不同,这些纪念碑是“凝固的”记忆,相对难以被重新诠释。雕像等纪念物在揭幕时通常会吸引大量公众关注,但它们很少传递太多信息。公众对纪念者的持续认可取决于其身后地位。然而,大多数石碑只不过是提示器;它们的作用与其说是创造记忆,不如说是提醒观赏者那些他们早已知晓的事件或人物。事实上,有时甚至会出现这样的情况:无论是名字还是形象,都完全无法在公众心中留下任何印象。这就是亨利·哈夫洛克爵士的命运,这位将军因在镇压1857年印度叛乱中发挥的作用而备受推崇,并被竖立了一座雕像以作纪念。特拉法加广场(以及英格兰各地的街道名称)。2001年,在关于广场重新规划的辩论中,伦敦市长肯·利文斯通宣称哈夫洛克是一个完全默默无闻的人物,不再值得拥有雕像。尽管移除雕像被认为是一种略显严厉的做法,但毫无疑问,利文斯通对哈夫洛克的无知,代表了绝大多数伦敦人的想法。许多其他在当时名声显赫的人物也遭遇了同样的命运。

Public commemoration also takes the more material form of monuments and statues. Most capital cities feature many such reminders of the past, usually selected as a contribution to national pride. In London the most prominent examples are the Queen Victoria monument outside Buckingham Palace, and Trafalgar Square which is dedicated to military and naval heroes. Unlike oral tradition, these are ‘frozen’ memories, relatively resistant to reinterpretation. Statues and the like usually attract considerable public attention when they are unveiled, but they seldom convey much information. Continuing public recognition depends on the posthumous standing of the honorand. However, most monuments in stone are little more than prompters; their role is not so much to create memory as to remind the viewer of events or persons which he or she knows about already. Indeed the point may be reached when neither the name nor the image registers with the public mind at all. Such was the fate of Sir Henry Havelock, the general lionized for his role in suppressing the Indian rebellion of 1857 and commemorated by a statue in Trafalgar Square (and by street names all over England). As part of a debate about replanning the square in 2001, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, declared Havelock to be a completely obscure individual who no longer merited a statue. Although removal of the statue was regarded as a somewhat draconian course, there is little doubt that Livingstone, in expressing his ignorance of Havelock, spoke for the overwhelming majority of Londoners. The same fate has overcome many other worthies who were names to conjure with in their own day.

荣誉

honorand

获得荣誉或嘉奖(在本例中为纪念)的人。

Recipient of an honour or distinction (in this case commemoration).

亨利·哈夫洛克爵士最著名的功绩是在1857年印度民族起义期间解救了勒克瑙的英国侨民。他不久后因发烧去世。哈夫洛克被各方誉为英雄,特拉法加广场上竖立着他的雕像以作纪念。(Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

Sir Henry Havelock’s most celebrated exploit was the relief of the British community in Lucknow, during the Indian rebellion of 1857. He died of fever shortly afterwards. Havelock was acclaimed a hero on all sides, and was commemorated by a statue in Trafalgar Square. (Getty Images/Hulton Archive)

但纪念碑的普遍存在不仅引发了人们对被纪念者身后事的思考,也凸显了纪念行为本身的动机。如此之多的纪念碑的委托建造和选址表明,在一个集体记忆不再被视为理所当然的社会中,它已被侵蚀或取代,如今若想存续,就必须人为地加以维护。取代记忆的正是历史本身:对过去进行批判性的、基于证据的研究,这种研究不与任何政治议程挂钩。至少,这是皮埃尔·诺拉颇具影响力的论点:历史“是现代社会如何组织一段注定要被遗忘的过去,因为现代社会受制于变革”;他继续说道,历史对记忆抱有深深的敌意,因为记忆在其传统形式中是“无所不能的、包罗万象的、无意识的,并且本质上是面向当下的”。 10诺拉为了修辞效果而夸大了这种对立。现代社会中遗留的记忆文化比他所认为的更为丰富,而历史学家也绝非无辜,他们也会为了政治目的而选择和塑造自己的作品。然而,诺拉的观点是正确的,即现代社会的记忆并非自发形成,而是人为操控的:纪念活动聚焦于那些已经完全被遗忘或仅被模糊感知的事件或人物。诺拉还指出,他的祖国——法国——一百多年来一直遭受着无情的纪念:在他的巨著中,作者们分析了大约130个“记忆场所”(lieux de mémoire),这些场所表达了各种文化和政治目标,但都服务于一种法国理念。 11

But the prevalence of monuments not only raises questions about the after-life of those commemorated; it also throws into relief the commemorative impulse itself. The commissioning and siting of so many monuments suggests a society in which collective memory can no longer be taken for granted. As an integral aspect of culture it has been eroded or displaced, and it must now be artificially promoted if it is to survive at all. What has displaced memory is history itself: the critical, evidence-based study of the past, which is not tied to any political agenda. That at least is the influential thesis of Pierre Nora: history ‘is how modern societies organize a past they are condemned to forget because they are driven by change’; history, he goes on, is deeply hostile to memory, which in its traditional form is ‘all-powerful, sweeping, un-self-conscious, and inherently present-minded’.10 Nora overplays the antithesis for rhetorical effect. More of a memory culture survives in modern societies than he allows, while historians are by no means innocent of selecting and moulding their work for political effect. Nevertheless Nora is right that memory in modern societies is not spontaneous, but managed: commemoration is focused on events or people that have either passed out of memory altogether, or are only dimly perceived. And Nora shows how his own country – France – has been subjected to relentless memorialization for over a hundred years: the contributors to his magnum opus analyse some 130 ‘sites of memory’ (lieux de mémoire), expressing a variety of cultural and political goals, but all of them dedicated to an idea of France.11

在这样的社会中,集体记忆不能被视为普通民众真实文化的一部分。自发口述传承的元素固然得以保留,但它们与出于政治目的而推行的历史解读,以及刻意保存的历史残余密不可分。然而,无论这些历史是内化形成的还是吸收的,它们都不可避免地与主流文化交织在一起。从霸权文化的角度来看,大众历史意识是政治史和文化史的重要组成部分。要厘清这些不同要素之间的关系,还需要开展更多研究。种种迹象表明,这项工作将会得到大力推进;因为,将表征和意义的研究置于首位,集体记忆的研究与文化转向完全契合,实际上,它本身就是文化转向不可或缺的一部分。

In such societies collective memory cannot be regarded as part of the authentic culture of ordinary people. Elements of spontaneous oral transmission certainly survive, but they are inextricably combined with readings of the past that have been promoted for political ends, and with residues of the past that have been deliberately preserved. Yet, whether inwardly grown or absorbed from a hegemonic culture, popular historical consciousness is an important ingredient of political and cultural history. Much more research is needed to tease out the relations between these different elements. The signs are that the task will be pursued with some vigour; for, in prioritizing the study of representation and meaning, the study of collective memory is fully in tune with the cultural turn; indeed it is an integral part of it.

III

亲身经历

First-hand memories

在集体记忆的研究中,个体的声音常常被忽视,因为过去并非个人的专属,而是社群的共同财产。然而,对于第一手回忆录而言,情况则截然不同。尽管个人证词并非完全独立于文化影响之外,但它以个体证人的经历和观点为中心,往往以生动的细节和饱含情感的力量进行叙述。

In the study of collective memory, individual voices are often lost sight of, because the past is not the property of the individual but a community possession. The position is quite different with regard to first-hand reminiscence. Though hardly independent of cultural influences, personal testimony is centred on the experience and opinions of the individual informant, often recounted with vividness of detail and an emotional power.

20世纪60年代末,历史学家开始发展一种记录和解读访谈所得历史证据的方法。鉴于历史研究与档案研究的密切联系,这无疑是一项重大创新。对许多历史学家,尤其是左翼历史学家而言,这犹如一股清流,使他们能够用普通人的语言重构他们的生活,而不是依赖官方记录和精英作家的观察。这项新技术被称为口述历史。它之所以备受推崇,原因有二。首先,它能够生动地再现过去,提供五六十年前民众经验的真实证据:例如,课堂纪律或工业冲突对工人阶级社区的影响。在这里,口述证据被视为与文献记录类似的原始资料,享有同等的优先地位。但仔细考察往往会发现,受访者——尤其是老年受访者——的证词与已知记录存在偏差,例如遗漏或掺杂无关信息。他们对几十年前的记忆会受到后续经历和他人回忆的影响而发生改变。这是口述资料如今备受关注的第二个原因。它如同代代相传的集体记忆,为我们提供了宝贵的信息。这证明了过去如何在活着的人心中不断演变。

In the late 1960s historians began to develop a methodology for recording and interpreting evidence about the past acquired from interview. Given the close association of historical scholarship with archival research, this was a significant novelty. For many historians, especially those on the Left, it was a breath of fresh air which enabled them to reconstruct the lives of ordinary people in their own words, instead of relying on the official record and the observations of elite writers. The new technique became known as oral history. It is valued for two different reasons. First, it can bring the past vividly to life, providing authentic evidence of popular experience fifty or sixty years ago: for example, the discipline of the schoolroom or the impact of industrial strife on working-class communities. Here oral evidence is treated as a primary source analogous to the documentary record, enjoying the same privileged status. But closer examination often reveals that the testimony of informants – especially elderly informants – departs from the known record by omission or by the incorporation of extraneous elements. What they remember from several decades back is modified by the impact of subsequent experience and the recollections of other people. This is the second reason why oral material is now so closely studied. Like collective memory transmitted over the generations, it provides precious evidence of how the past continues to evolve in the minds of the living.

口述历史的渊源

The pedigree of oral history

专业历史学家直到近代才开始积累收集口述史料的经验。即使在今天,历史学界的主流仍然持怀疑态度,并且往往不愿就口述研究的实际优缺点展开讨论。阿瑟·马维克在其著作《历史的新本质》(2001)中对此不屑一顾。然而,如今被尊为第一批历史学家的希罗多德修昔底德,其研究证据主要来源于口述史料。中世纪的编年史家和历史学家对口述证词的依赖程度也毫不逊色;尽管从文艺复兴时期开始,书面史料的重要性迅速提升,但口述史料仍然作为文献研究的重要辅助手段而存在。直到19世纪现代学院派历史学的兴起,口述史料的使用才被彻底摒弃。新一代专业历史学家将精力投入到书面文献的研究上,以此作为他们专业技能的依据,他们的工作也主要局限于图书馆和档案馆。法国历史学家儒勒·米什莱非常独特地将普通民众的记忆誉为“活的文献”。 12

It is only very recently that professional historians have acquired any experience of collecting oral sources. Even today the mainstream of the historical profession remains sceptical and is often not prepared to enter into discussion about the actual merits and drawbacks of oral research. Arthur Marwick gave it short shrift in The New Nature of History (2001). Yet oral sources provided the bulk of the evidence used by those who are now revered as the first historians – Herodotus and Thucydides. The chroniclers and historians of the Middle Ages were hardly less dependent on oral testimony; and although written sources grew rapidly in importance from the Renaissance onwards, the older techniques still survived as a valued adjunct to documentary research. It was only with the emergence of modern academic history in the nineteenth century that the use of oral sources was entirely abandoned. The energies of the new professional historians were taken up by the study of written documents, on which their claim to technical expertise was based, and their working lives were largely confined to the library and the archive. The French historian Jules Michelet was highly unusual in saluting the memories of the common people as ‘living documents’.12

希罗多德(约公元前485- 425年

Herodotus (c.485–425 BCE)

他通常被认为是“历史学之父”。他广泛游历了希腊语世界,并大量依赖当地的线人。

Generally regarded as ‘the father of history’. He travelled widely throughout the Greek-speaking world and relied extensively on local informants.

修昔底德(约公元前460- 400年

Thucydides (c.460–400 BCE)

这位雅典历史学家主要著述了雅典与斯巴达之间的伯罗奔尼撒战争。他也依赖于线人。他以冷静客观的立场而闻名。

Athenian historian who wrote principally about the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. He, too, relied on informants. He is renowned for his dispassionate impartiality.

具有讽刺意味的是,当今历史学家引用的许多书面资料本身就源于口述历史。在十九世纪社会史的主要史料中占据重要地位的社会调查和官方调查委员会的报告,充斥着大量总结性的证词;历史学家经常引用这些报告,却往往忽略了证人的选择和访谈的具体情况。然而,历史学家通过亲自访谈来增加口述证据数量的想法,仍然引发了人们的疑虑。部分原因是,历史学家不愿在“历史资料的首要要求是具有时代性”这一原则上做出任何妥协——而口述资料不可避免地带有事后诸葛亮的成分。或许,学者们参与创造(而不仅仅是诠释)新证据所带来的影响,也是他们不愿面对的现实。

Ironically, many of the written sources cited by today’s historians were themselves oral in origin. Social surveys and official commissions of enquiry, which loom so large in the primary sources for nineteenth-century social history, are full of summarized testimonies; historians routinely draw on them, often with little regard for the selection of witnesses or the circumstances in which they were interviewed. Yet the idea that historians might add to the volume of oral evidence by conducting interviews themselves continues to arouse misgivings. The reason is partly that historians are reluctant to see any compromise with the principle that contemporaneity is the prime requirement of historical sources – and oral sources have an inescapable element of hindsight about them. Perhaps too there is a reluctance to grapple with the implications of scholars sharing in the creation (and not just the interpretation) of new evidence.

口述历史的必要性

The need for oral history

口述史料之所以能在专业历史学家中取得进展,几乎完全是因为传统书面史料在许多如今备受学术关注的领域缺乏详实的记录。近代政治史便是其中之一。维多利亚时代和爱德华时代的公众人物通常会进行大量的官方和私人信函往来,而现代公众人物则更多地依赖电话和电子邮件,即便写信,也鲜有时间详述。近代一些重要的公众人物甚至没有留下任何私人文件——例如,20世纪30年代和40年代工党的重要成员赫伯特·莫里森。 13为了使史料的完整性达到传记所需的水平,历史学家不得不从这些人物的在世同事和伙伴那里收集他们的印象和回忆。第二个领域涉及可称之为近期日常生活社会史的内容,尤其关注工人阶级家庭和工作场所中那些鲜少受到当时观察或研究的方面。在英国,口述历史运动主要由社会史学家主导,他们对这些主题的兴趣在很多情况下源于积极的社会主义立场,这一点在其内部期刊《口述历史》中可见一斑。口述历史学家也深切意识到自己有义务将资料提供给其他学者;录音和文字记录通常会被公开保存,例如存放在大英图书馆声音档案馆。

The fact that oral techniques have made any headway at all among professional historians is due almost entirely to the reticence of conventional written sources on a number of areas that are now engaging scholarly attention. Recent political history is one such topic. Whereas in the Victorian and Edwardian periods public figures commonly conducted a voluminous official and private correspondence, their modern counterparts rely much more on the telephone and e-mail, and when they do write letters they seldom have the leisure to write at length. There have been major public figures in recent times who have left no private papers to speak of – for example Herbert Morrison, a leading member of the Labour Party in the 1930s and 1940s.13 In order to fill out the evidence to the proportions appropriate to a biography, historians have had to collect the impressions and recollections of such figures from their surviving colleagues and associates. The second area concerns what might be termed the recent social history of everyday life, and particularly those aspects of working-class life in the family and the workplace that were seldom the subject of contemporary observation or enquiry. In Britain the oral history movement is dominated by social historians whose interest in these topics is in many cases sustained by an active socialist commitment, evident in their house journal, Oral History. Oral historians are also acutely conscious of their obligation to make their material available to other scholars; recordings and transcripts are usually placed on public deposit, for example in the British Library Sound Archive.

赫伯特·莫里森(1885–1965)

Herbert Morrison (1885–1965)

工党政治家。他是两次世界大战期间伦敦发展的重要人物,尤其是在首都公共交通网络建设方面。他曾在拉姆齐·麦克唐纳1929年的工党政府中任职,并在丘吉尔的战时联合政府中担任内政大臣。战后,他在克莱门特·艾德礼的工党政府中担任副首相,负责推动国有化方案在下议院获得通过。他是布莱尔领导的新工党大臣彼得·曼德尔森的祖父。

Labour politician. He was a major figure in the development of London between the wars, especially the capital’s public transport network. He served in Ramsay MacDonald’s 1929 Labour government, and as Home Secretary in Churchill’s wartime coalition. He was Deputy Prime Minister in Clement Attlee’s postwar Labour government and was in charge of steering the programme of nationalization through the House of Commons. He was the grandfather of the Blairite New Labour minister, Peter Mandelson.

第四

IV

人民的声音?

The voice of the people?

我和父亲一起来到这个村子时,也是住在临时住所,所以下矿后回到家并没有什么真正的舒适感。我记得当时住的一间房子里,住了六七个矿工。那只是一栋三居室的房子,你可以想象我们是轮流睡觉的。

When I came to this village with my father, I was in lodgings as well, so there were no real home comforts to come back to after the pit. I remember being in one set of lodgings: there were six or seven other miners lodging there. It was only a house with three bedrooms, so you can imagine that we were sleeping on a rota basis.

如果五六个人一起上同一班,我一下矿井就飞奔回家,抢第一个洗澡。那里没有浴室,只有一个旧锌桶,房东太太会在火上烧几桶水。如果五六个人一起,首先五个人会洗上半身。洗澡的时候,大家轮流洗上半身,然后再回到浴缸里洗下半身。那时候让我觉得好笑——不,应该说是尴尬——的是,隔壁或者这排房子两边的女人会进来,坐在厨房里,一动不动地看着你洗下半身。我当时还是个孩子,不习惯这样,不仅害羞,还觉得很尴尬,因为即使在那个年代,人们也开始意识到男女之间的差异。14

If five or six of us were on the same shift, as soon as I got out of the pit I’d gallop home to be the first to have a bath. There were no bathrooms: all you had was an old zinc tub, and the landlady would have a couple of buckets of water on the fire. If there were five or six of you together, first of all five of you would bath the top half of the body. Everybody bathed the top half of the body in a rota, and then you stepped back into the bath and washed the bottom part of your body. What used to amuse me in those days – well, not amuse – what used to embarrass me was that you’d get the women from next door or from each side of the terraced house. They’d come in there, and they’d sit down in the kitchen, and they wouldn’t bloody move – when even you were washing the bottom part of your body. As a youngster and not being used to that, I was not only shy but embarrassed, because you learnt the differences even in those days between the sexes.14

这段叙述来自南威尔士一位退休煤矿工人,是矿业社区历史研究项目的一部分。它展现了口述历史吸引历史学家的特质。这是一段自传片段,讲述者原本绝不会想到以这种方式来记录自己的回忆。这段经历既平凡又独特,生动地展现了一种如今只存在于英国老一辈人记忆中的生活方式。爱德华时代的当代文献——例如社会调查员和慈善机构的报告——提供了大量关于贫民住所的信息,但这些信息都是二手资料,并经过了“专家”意见的润色,是一种来自外部的描述,而非亲身经历的产物。口述历史则让普通人的声音得以被听到,与书面记录中精心编纂的社会事实相得益彰。

This narrative, collected from a retired collier in South Wales as part of a research project on the history of mining communities, conveys something of the qualities that recommend oral history to historians. It is a fragment of autobiography by someone who would never otherwise have dreamed of dignifying his reminiscences in that way. As an individual experience that is commonplace and yet at the same time particular, it offers a vivid insight into a way of life that now survives in Britain only in the memories of the very old. Contemporary written sources for the Edwardian period – the reports of social investigators and charitable bodies, for example – provide copious information about the homes of the poor, but it is information derived at second hand and glossed by ‘expert’ opinion, a description from outside rather than a product of experience. Oral history allows the voice of ordinary people to be heard alongside the careful marshalling of social facts in the written record.

从线人那里收集到的证词,就像大多数老年人对青年时代的记忆一样,在具体事件及其发生顺序方面往往混乱不堪。它最可靠的地方在于描述反复出现的经历,例如一项工作技能的实践,或者孩子参与邻里和亲属关系网络的过程。日常生活的惯例和普通社会关系的结构在当时是司空见惯的,因此被视为理所当然,但如今它们却显得引人入胜,而口述调查提供了最便捷的途径——正如伊丽莎白·罗伯茨在其著作《女性的地位》(1984)中对兰开夏郡工人阶级女性的精彩研究,该书基于近160次访谈。口述历史的独特之处还在于,它揭示了日常生活各个方面之间本质上的联系,而历史学家通常将这些方面视为孤立的社会事实。例如,通过极度贫困者的生活史,我们可以了解……口述历史生动地描绘了第一次世界大战前(以及战后)成千上万人的社会环境:临时性劳动、周期性贫困、营养不良、酗酒、逃学和家庭暴力。简而言之,口述历史赋予了社会历史以鲜活的人性面孔。

The testimony that can be gleaned from informants, like the memories of most old people about their youth, is often confused as regards specific events and the sequence in which they occurred. Where it is most reliable is in characterizing recurrent experience, like the practice of a working skill or a child’s involvement in a network of neighbours and kin. The routines of daily life and the fabric of ordinary social relationships were commonplace and therefore taken for granted at the time, but now they seem of compelling human interest, and oral enquiry offers the readiest means of access – as in A Woman’s Place (1984), Elizabeth Roberts’s fine study of Lancashire working-class women, based on nearly 160 interviews. What oral history also uniquely conveys is the essential connectedness of aspects of daily life which the historian otherwise tends to know of as discrete social facts. Through the life histories of the very poor, for instance, the way in which casual labour, periodic destitution, under-nourishment, drunkenness, truancy and familial violence formed a total social environment for thousands of people before the First World War (and later) can be vividly portrayed. Oral history, in short, gives social history a human face.

口述历史和地方历史

Oral history and local history

口述历史学家如何找到他们的受访者?社会学的抽样方法对此产生了一定的影响。保罗·汤普森(Paul Thompson)早期曾尝试将口述历史的研究成果融入社会史研究,他精心选取了500位来自英国各个阶层和地区的爱德华时代幸存者作为样本,并将部分研究成果收录于他的著作《爱德华时代》(1975年)中。 15但鲜有历史学家效仿他的做法。近期的大多数口述历史研究都着重于地方层面,这其中有充分的现实原因。在严格的地方性研究中,所有愿意且有能力的老年人都可以被采访;由于证词可以相互比对,因此无需过分依赖单个受访者的可靠性;而且,在人物传记中总是占据重要位置的纯粹地方性细节,也可以借助其他史料加以阐释。此外,值得注意的是,口述历史从一开始就是由业余的地方历史学家实践的。英国业余地方史的传统(可追溯至十六世纪)强调地形地貌以及乡绅、牧师(以及较少涉及的商人)的世界。口述历史能够让普通民众感受到地方和社区的氛围,同时也能揭示更广泛的社会历史特征。在历史工作坊运动的支持下,此类研究成果斐然。拉斐尔·塞缪尔重构了牛津附近海丁顿采石场在20世纪20年代被汽车工业扩张吞噬之前的经济和社会环境;如果没有他收集的丰富的口述证词,塞缪尔很难超越当时报纸上“采石场粗汉”的刻板印象,去了解支撑村民独立精神的各种行业和社会网络。在城市地方史领域,杰里·怀特(一位技艺精湛的业余历史学家)的两项伦敦口述研究或许是最佳之作:一项研究的是位于伦敦霍洛威区一条臭名昭著的街道,该街道位于伦敦市中心和伦敦市中心之间。战争(坎贝尔路),另一起则与世纪之交东区的一栋公寓楼有关。17

How do oral historians come by their informants? The sampling techniques of sociology have had some influence here. In a classic early attempt to incorporate the findings of oral history into a general social history, Paul Thompson took a carefully constructed sample of 500 surviving Edwardians from all classes and regions of Britain, and some of the resulting material is presented in his book, The Edwardians (1975).15 But few historians have followed his example. Most recent oral history has been emphatically local in focus, and for this there are sound practical reasons. In a strictly local study all the elderly who are willing and able can be canvassed; less trust has to be placed in the reliability of the individual informant since the testimonies can be tested against each other; and the purely local references which always feature prominently in life histories can be elucidated with the help of other source materials. But it is also significant that oral history has from the outset been practised by amateur local historians. The English tradition of amateur local history (which extends back to the sixteenth century) has stressed topography and the world of the squire, parson and – more rarely – businessman. Oral history promises a sense of place and community accessible to ordinary people, while at the same time illuminating broader features of social history. Very fine work of this kind has been done under the auspices of the History Workshop movement. Raphael Samuel reconstructed the economic and social milieu of Headington Quarry near Oxford before it was enveloped by the expansion of the motor industry in the 1920s; without the rich oral testimony he collected, Samuel would have found it difficult to penetrate far beyond the stereotype of ‘Quarry roughs’ in newspapers of the time to understand the range of trades and social networks that sustained the independent spirit of the villagers.16 In the field of urban local history, perhaps the best oral work has been the two London studies by Jerry White, an accomplished amateur: one on a notorious Holloway street between the World Wars (Campbell Road), the other about a single tenement block in the East End around the turn of the century.17

地形

topography

对某一地点的自然特征进行研究。

The study of the physical features of a location.

乡绅

squire

这个词通常用来指乡绅阶层成员,也就是某个村庄的主要地主。它通常用来指那些影响力仅限于特定地区的人,与拥有广袤土地的贵族和世家子弟相对。

The general term used for a member of the gentry, the major landowner in a particular village. The term is usually reserved for those whose influence was limited to one particular locality, as opposed to nobles and aristocrats, whose landholdings might be very extensive.

收集到的关于霍洛威坎贝尔路的口述证词驳斥了它“伦敦最差街道”的恶名。(Topfoto/J White)

The collection of oral testimony about Campbell Road in Holloway belied its reputation as ‘the worst street in London’. (Topfoto/J White)

真正的过去?

The authentic past?

口述历史实践背后蕴含着两个极具吸引力的假设。首先,也是最显而易见的,个人回忆被视为重现过去——真实反映人类生活体验——的有效工具。保罗·汤普森颇具启发性地将他关于口述历史方法和成就的著作命名为《过去的声音》,尽管书中也提出了一些保留意见,但历史学家与其研究对象直接接触的理念是汤普森观点的核心。因此,从某种程度上说,口述历史仅仅代表了一种实现自19世纪初以来专业历史学家所制定的目标的新途径——“展现事物真实的面貌”。口述历史旨在尽可能充分地了解过去人们的经历。但许多口述历史学家并不满足于成为专业历史研究的素材。他们将口述历史视为一种民主的选择,挑战着学术精英的垄断。普通民众不仅在历史中占有一席之地,而且在具有重要政治意义的历史知识生产中也扮演着重要角色。20世纪70年代,伦敦东区的哈克尼居民自传组织(People's Autobiography of Hackney)是一个开放的当地居民团体,他们互相记录彼此的生活经历,并将转录稿印成小册子,通过当地书店销售。虽然参与者中有受过教育的人,但没有学院派历史学家参与;如果学院派历史学家参与,人们对自身历史认知的信心可能会受到动摇。该组织的理念是,通过口述工作,社区应该能够发现自身的历史,发展自身的社会认同,摆脱传统历史观念中居高临下的假设。该小组协调员肯·沃波尔回忆起小组在20世纪70年代初成立时的情景:“从工人阶级的口述回忆中提炼出可共享的共同历史,这似乎是一项积极而重要的活动,可以与其他各种新型的‘社区’政治形式相结合。” 19口述历史的地方项目服务于许多其他群体的利益,这些群体基于不同的阶级和种族背景。

Underlying the practice of oral history are two powerfully attractive assumptions. First – and most obviously – personal reminiscence is viewed as an effective instrument for re-creating the past – the authentic testimony of human life as it was actually experienced. Paul Thompson revealingly entitles his book on the methods and achievements of oral history The Voice of the Past, and – notwithstanding all the reservations made in the text – the notion of a direct encounter between historians and their subject matter is central to Thompson’s outlook.18 At one level, therefore, oral history simply represents a novel means of fulfilling the programme laid down by professional historians since the early nineteenth century – ‘to show how things actually were’ and to enter into the experience of people in the past as fully as possible. But many oral historians are not content with being grist to the mills of professional history. They see oral history rather as a democratic alternative, challenging the monopoly of an academic elite. Ordinary people are offered not only a place in history, but a role in the production of historical knowledge with important political implications. In east London during the 1970s the People’s Autobiography of Hackney was an open group of local residents who recorded each other’s life histories and published the transcriptions in pamphlets marketed through a local bookshop. Although educated people participated, no academic historians were involved; if they had been, the confidence of people in their own perceptions of the past might have been undermined. The idea was that through oral work the community should discover its own history and develop its social identity, free from the patronizing assumptions of conventional historical wisdom. Ken Worpole, coordinator of the group, recalls the circumstances in which it began in the early 1970s: ‘producing shareable and common history from the spoken reminiscences of working-class people seemed a positive and important activity to integrate with various other new forms of “community” politics’.19 Local projects in oral history have served the interests of many other groups, variously based on class and ethnicity.

V

V

口述历史的陷阱

The pitfalls of oral history

然而,这两种表述——将口述历史视为“重现”和“民主”知识——都存在问题。专业历史学家的角色本身就造成了困难。认为证词是对过去经验的纯粹提炼是天真的,因为在访谈中,双方都会受到对方的影响。历史学家选择受访者并指明研究领域;即使他/她不提问,只是倾听,局外人的存在也会影响受访者回忆过去的氛围。最终的成果既取决于历史学家相对于受访者的社会地位,也取决于他/她所习得的分析过去的视角,而这些视角很可能也会传递给受访者。正如美国口述历史学者迈克尔·弗里施所提出的,历史学家和受访者共同行使着一种“共享权威”。 20

However, both these formulations – oral history as ‘re-creation’ and as ‘democratic’ knowledge – are problematic. The role of the professional historian itself makes for difficulties. It is naïve to suppose that the testimony represents a pure distillation of past experience, for in an interview each party is affected by the other. It is the historian who selects the informant and indicates the area of interest; and even if he or she asks no questions and merely listens, the presence of an outsider affects the atmosphere in which the informant recalls the past. The end-product is conditioned both by the historian’s social position vis-à-vis the informant, and by the terms in which he or she has learnt to analyse the past and which may well be communicated to the informant. In the phrase made popular by the American oral scholar Michael Frisch, historian and informants exercise a ‘shared authority’.20

历史学家已经掌握了获取历史见证人口述证词的技巧。但是,在处理这些不可避免地受到事后诸葛亮影响的第一手资料时,我们需要多么谨慎呢?(Topfoto/Image Works)

Historians have learned the techniques required to get hold of the oral testimony of witnesses to the past. But how much care is needed in dealing with first-hand accounts that are inevitably influenced by hindsight? (Topfoto/Image Works)

但即便历史学家离开了现场,困难也远未结束。因为就连信息提供者也无法直接接触过去。他或她的记忆,无论多么清晰生动,都会受到后来经历的过滤。它们可能受到从其他来源(尤其是媒体)吸收的信息的影响;可能被怀旧情绪所掩盖(“那时候真好”),或者被童年时期匮乏的怨恨所扭曲,而这种怨恨直到成年后才根深蒂固。对于任何听众来说,那些情感和态度——比如对父母的爱或对工会官员的不信任——往往赋予了证词以说服力,然而这些情感和态度可能并非源于所讨论的那个时期,而是源于后来的经历。正如一位评论保罗·汤普森作品的评论家所说:

But the difficulties are far from over when the historian is removed from the scene. For not even the informant is in direct touch with the past. His or her memories, however precise and vivid, are filtered through subsequent experience. They may be contaminated by what has been absorbed from other sources (especially the media); they may be overlaid by nostalgia (‘times were good then’), or distorted by a sense of grievance about deprivation in childhood which took root only in later life. To anyone listening, the feelings and attitudes – say of affection towards a parent or distrust of union officials – are often what lend conviction to the testimony, yet they may be the emotional residue of later experience rather than the period in question. As one critic of Paul Thompson’s work put it:

毕竟,他笔下的“爱德华时代”的人,后来变成了“乔治时代”的人,如今又变成了“伊丽莎白时代”的人。岁月流逝,某些记忆逐渐褪色,或者至少受到了后来经历的影响。他们童年的回忆中,有多少是长辈们讲述的?他们后来读过哪些自传或小说,从而强化了某些印象,却忽略了另一些?哪些电影或电视节目影响了他们的意识?……那么,……的兴起在多大程度上会影响他们的记忆?战后十年间,工党是否引发了人们对阶级地位和冲突的回顾性认知?21

His ‘Edwardians’ after all, have lived on to become ‘Georgians’ and, now, ‘Elizabethans’. Over the years, certain memories have faded, or, at very least, may have been influenced by subsequent experience. How many of their childhood recollections were, in fact, recalled to them by their own elders? What autobiographies or novels might they have since read that would reinforce certain impressions at the expense of others? What films or television programmes have had an impact on their consciousness? … to what extent might the rise of the Labour Party in the post-war decade have inspired retrospective perception of class status and conflict?21

无论依据何种证据,与过去直接接触的想法都是一种错觉,尤其是在事后诸葛亮的证词中更是如此。“过去的声音”不可避免地也是现在的声音。

Whatever the evidence it rests on, the notion of a direct encounter with the past is an illusion, but perhaps nowhere more than in the case of testimony from hindsight. ‘The voice of the past’ is inescapably the voice of the present too.

爱德华时代

Edwardian

与爱德华七世国王统治时期(1901-1910 年)有关。

Relating to the reign of King Edward VII (1901–10).

格鲁吉亚

Georgian

这里指的是乔治五世国王(1910-1936 年)的统治时期。该术语通常用于指前四位乔治国王(1714-1930 年)的统治时期;它很少用来指代乔治五世,即使使用,通常也与“乔治时代”的画家和作家联系在一起。

Here, relating to the reign of King George V (1910–36). The term is more usually used of the reigns of the first four Georges (1714–1930); it was only rarely used to refer to George V, and then usually in conjunction with ‘Georgian’ painters and writers.

伊丽莎白时代

Elizabethan

虽然通常用来指第一位伊丽莎白女王,但在这里指的是伊丽莎白二世女王。在她1952年登基之初,曾流行过一种“新伊丽莎白时代”的说法,尽管这个说法并没有流行很久。

Although usually used to refer to the first Queen Elizabeth, it here refers to Queen Elizabeth II. There was a vogue at the start of her reign in 1952 to speak of a ‘New Elizabethan Age’, though the term was not current for long.

口述历史的局限性

The limitations of oral history

然而,即便假设口述证据真实无误,它作为对过去的再现仍然不够充分。因为历史现实远不止是个人经验的总和。说我们的一生大部分时间都身处我们主观视角无法完全理解的情境之中,这并非贬低个人。我们如何感知周围的世界或许能成为我们生活的有效基础,或许不能,但它永远无法完全反映现实。历史学家的职责之一,便是探究个体生活中更深层次的结构和过程。因此,口述证据的优势在于其生动的个人回忆,而这恰恰也暴露了它的主要局限性。历史学家需要警惕自己陷入受访者的思维框架之中。正如菲利普·艾布拉姆斯所言:

Yet even supposing that oral evidence were somehow authentic and unalloyed, it would still be inadequate as a representation of the past. For historical reality comprises more than the sum of individual experiences. It is no disparagement of the individual to say that our lives are largely spent in situations that, from our subjective perspective, we cannot fully understand. How we perceive the world around us may or may not amount to a viable basis for living, but it never corresponds to reality in its entirety. One of the historian’s functions is to investigate the deeper structures and processes that were at work in the lives of individuals. The vividness of personal recall which is the strength of oral evidence also therefore points to its principal limitation, and historians need to be wary about becoming trapped within the mental categories of their informants. In the words of Philip Abrams:

近距离接触或许会让声音更大,但并不会……让它们的含义更清晰。为此,我们必须从“它们”的含义转向我们自己的含义,转向我们所了解的、它们自己不知道或未曾提及的关于它们的事情。22

The close encounter may make the voices louder; it does not … make their meaning clearer. To that end we must turn back from ‘their’ meanings to our own and to the things we know about them which they did not know, or say, about themselves.22

这种局限性尤其体现在口述历史中的民主或民粹主义倾向上。“人民自传”类项目的理念是,清晰而真实的历史意识能够使普通劳动人民更好地掌控自己的生活。但要做到这一点,他们需要了解塑造他们世界的各种力量——其中大多数并非由他们创造,也并非直接体现在他们的经历中。集体口述历史的问题在于,它可能强化大多数人对自身经历变迁的肤浅认知,而不是赋予他们更深刻的洞察力,从而为更有效的政治行动奠定基础。

This limitation applies with particular force to the democratic or populist tendency in oral history. The idea behind projects of the ‘people’s autobiography’ type is that an articulate and authentic historical consciousness will enable ordinary working people to take more control over their lives. But to do so they need an understanding of the forces that have actually moulded their world – most of them not of their making or directly manifest in their experience. The problem with collective oral history is that it may reinforce the superficial way in which most people think of the changes they have lived through, instead of equipping them with deeper insights as a basis for more effective political action.

解读口述历史

Interpreting oral history

那么,口述历史在历史学家的实践中究竟占据怎样的地位?这里提出的问题并非否定口述历史的价值。相反,它们表明,口述证据如同所有口头材料一样,需要批判性评估,并且必须与其他所有可用资料结合使用;换言之,第五章所述的历史方法论原则同样适用于此。证词的记录并非“历史”,而是历史写作的原材料。它们不能替代历史诠释的工作。

What place, then, does oral history have in the practice of historians? The problems raised here are not grounds for having nothing to do with oral history. What they suggest is rather that oral evidence, like all verbal materials, requires critical evaluation, and that it must be deployed in conjunction with all the other available sources; in other words, the canons of historical method described in Chapter 5 apply here too. Transcriptions of testimonies are not ‘history’, but raw material for the writing of history. They are no substitute for the work of historical interpretation.

事实上,口述史料对历史学家的技能要求极高。要想充分理解口述证词的意义,必须将其与所有与所述地点和人物相关的史料结合起来进行评估,否则许多细节将毫无价值。有时,口述研究本身就能挖掘出私人手中新的文献资料——例如家庭记录或老照片——从而丰富佐证材料。杰里·怀特(Jerry White)在其关于伦敦东区廉租房生活的著作《罗斯柴尔德大厦》(Rothschild Buildings,1980)中这样描述道:

Oral sources are in fact extremely demanding of the historian’s skills. If the full significance of an oral testimony is to come across, it must be evaluated in conjunction with all the sources pertaining to the locality and people spoken of, or else much of the detail will count for nothing. Sometimes oral research itself unearths new documentary material in private hands – family accounts or old photographs – which add to the amount of supporting evidence. Jerry White describes his book on tenement life in London’s East End, Rothschild Buildings (1980), in these terms:

这或许主要是一部口述历史作品,但文献资料在其构思过程中也发挥了重要作用。书面资料和口述资料贯穿全书,相互交织:一份新文献的发现促使我向受访者提出不同的问题,而口述证词又为文献资料提供了新的视角。第一批租户租金簿上印制的规则让我探究这些规则是否得到遵守以及如何遵守;找到建筑物的原始图纸让我好奇客厅门后的嵌入式橱柜里究竟存放着什么;人们对购物的回忆让我对街道名录持保留态度;自传式的细节使我对人口普查分类、社会学家的假设以及标准的历史参考著作产生了质疑,等等。23

This may be primarily a work of oral history but documents have played a large part in its conception. Written sources and oral sources interact throughout: finding a new document has led me to ask different questions of the people I interviewed, and the oral testimony has thrown fresh light on the documents. The rules printed on the first tenants’ rentbooks led me to ask if they were obeyed and how; finding the original plans of the Buildings made me wonder what was kept in the fitted cupboard behind the living-room door; people’s memories of shopping led me to take street directories with a large pinch of salt; autobiographical details cast doubts on census classifications, sociologists’ assumptions and standard historical reference works, and so on.23

对于“民主”口述历史而言,掌握所有相关资料同样至关重要。地方史学家常用的传统资料库——商业档案、报纸、人口普查记录、慈善机构报告等等——能够帮助我们了解受访者生活的经济和社会背景,并揭示塑造当地可观察变化的历史进程。业余小组项目固有的局限性意味着,为了取得政治成效,即使没有专业史学家的参与,至少也需要他们的参与。熟悉主流社会史研究方法和成果的人员。24

Command of the full range of relevant sources is no less important for ‘democratic’ oral history. The more traditional inventory of local historians’ sources – business archives, newspapers, census returns, the reports of charitable bodies, etc. – provides an entry into the economic and social context of the informants’ lives and may reveal something of the historical processes that have shaped the observable changes in the locality. The limitations inherent in the amateur group project mean that, to be politically effective, it requires the participation, if not of professional historians, at least of people familiar with the methods and findings of mainstream social history.24

六年级

VI

口述历史作为文化记忆

Oral history as cultural memory

然而,在某种重要意义上,对口述证词准确性的担忧其实无关紧要。因为第一手的回忆录引出了一种文化分析,其视角与前文所述的更广义的集体记忆分析类似。口述历史作为真实历史的重要性或许不及它作为不可或缺的证据,它揭示了过去如何在当下的意识中鲜活地存在。从这个角度来看,受访者提供的与其说是关于日常生活的私人知识,不如说是指向更深层次的价值观和情感的线索。就近期发生的公共事件而言,口述证词不太可能取代或补充书面记录。它所展现的是这些事件如何深深植根于大众意识之中,以及它们的意义如何在人的一生中不断演变。个人所承载的过去感,既包含着他们直接经验的选择,也包含着他们对所处社会秩序本质的某种理解。历史传记有时会展现这两个要素如何在领袖和知识分子的思想中相互影响,但我们对它们在普通民众历史意识中的地位却知之甚少。然而,社会群体吸收和诠释其政治经验的方式本身就是一个历史因素,是政治文化的核心。从这个角度来看,从“爱德华时代”到“乔治时代”再到“伊丽莎白时代”的思维转变本身就值得研究,而不仅仅是阻碍我们直接了解过去的障碍。

However there is an important sense in which the anxiety about the accuracy of oral testimony is beside the point. For first-hand reminiscence invites a cultural analysis comparable to the perspective described earlier for collective memory in a more extended sense. Oral history may be less important as histoire vérité than as indispensable evidence of how the past lives in the consciousness of the present. From this perspective informants are offering not so much private knowledge of the everyday as pointers to more deep-seated values and sentiments. In the case of recent public events, oral testimony is not likely to supplant or add to the written record. What it demonstrates is how those events became lodged in popular consciousness, and how their significance has been modified over a lifetime. The sense of the past that individuals carry around with them comprises a selection of their immediate experience, together with some conception of the nature of the social order in which they live. Historical biographies sometimes show how these two elements bear on each other in the thinking of leaders and intellectuals, but we know much less about their place in the historical awareness of ordinary people. Yet the way in which social groups assimilate and interpret their political experience is a historical factor in its own right, at the heart of political culture. From this perspective, the mental transition from ‘Edwardians’ to ‘Georgians’ and on to ‘Elizabethans’ is an object of study for its own sake, instead of being merely an obstruction in the way of a direct encounter with the past.

真实历史

histoire vérité

(法语)“真实历史”,源自“真实电影”一词,这是一种由法国导演开创的电影风格,它试图展现粗粝、未经修饰的“现实”,而不是传统电影精心构图的画面。

(French) ‘Truth history’, derived from the phrase cinéma vérité, a style of film pioneered by French directors, which attempted to show gritty and unpolished ‘reality’ rather than the carefully composed images of conventional cinema.

当个人记忆与重大公共事件相关时,它们更容易被重塑。民族士气决定了战争记忆应具有特定类型,而平民和士兵的集体经历也使人们倾向于接受既定的叙事。澳大利亚二十世纪的历史就是一个典型的例子。澳新军团参与1915年加里波利战役是现代澳大利亚民族认同的核心,并且自那时起就一直被官方宣传为如此。20世纪20年代。20世纪80年代,阿利斯泰尔·汤姆森采访了幸存的澳新军团士兵。他的著作《澳新军团回忆录:与传奇共存》(1994年)揭示了那些在战斗中经历过恐惧、创伤和无力感的士兵如何压抑自己的个人记忆,以符合当时社会普遍接受的忠诚、勇敢和战友情谊的形象——这种形象至今仍被大多数澳大利亚人所认同。换句话说,记忆及其在回忆中的表达,构建了一种标准化的叙事,这种叙事在几十年来一直是澳大利亚民族认同的基石。

The memories of individuals are even more susceptible to reworking when they bear on public events of great moment. National morale dictates that war memories should be of a particular kind, while the collective experience of both civilians and soldiers predisposes people to conform to the accepted narratives. The twentieth-century history of Australia provides a classic instance. The participation of Anzac troops in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915 is central to the modern sense of Australian nationhood, and has been officially promoted as such since the 1920s. Alistair Thomson conducted interviews of surviving Anzacs during the 1980s. His book, Anzac Memories: Living with the Legend (1994), shows how men who had experienced fear, trauma and a sense of inadequacy in combat suppressed their personal memories so as to match the accepted picture of loyalty, bravery and camaraderie on the front line, which most Australians accept to this day. In other words, memory and its articulation in reminiscence produced a standardized narrative which for several decades has served to underpin Australia’s sense of nationhood.

澳新军团

Anzac

正确的说法是澳新军团(ANZAC):澳大利亚和新西兰陆军军团。澳新军团参与了第一次世界大战期间盟军在土耳其加里波利的灾难性登陆战,他们惨重的伤亡使盟军对英国行动策划者产生了极大的怨恨。

Properly, ANZAC: Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Anzac troops were involved in the disastrous allied landings at Gallipoli in Turkey during the First World War, where their heavy casualties sowed much bitterness towards the British planners of the operation.

加里波利

Gallipoli

1915年,盟军在土耳其西部狭窄的达达尼尔海峡加里波利镇实施的两栖登陆,是第一次世界大战中盟军最惨重的战役之一。这项由时任海军大臣温斯顿·丘吉尔提出的计划,构思大胆,但计划和执行都十分糟糕,最终导致惨重伤亡。由于未能从登陆海滩向内陆推进,部队不得不撤离。

The amphibious landing of allied troops in 1915 at the town of Gallipoli, on the narrow Dardanelles strait in western Turkey, was one of the most disastrous allied operations of the First World War. The plan, proposed by Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty, was bold in conception but poorly planned and executed, and resulted in very heavy casualties. The troops had to be evacuated, never having been able to advance inland from the landing beaches.

口述历史的政治性不仅体现在人们记住什么,也体现在人们遗忘什么。考虑到大多数人记忆过去的能力有限,这并不令人惊讶;但这种压制也符合政治需要。路易莎·帕塞里尼(Luisa Passerini)在研究都灵市工人如何记忆法西斯时期时,惊讶地发现他们记得1922-23年法西斯夺权和1943年政权垮台,却对墨索里尼牢牢掌权的那二十年记忆模糊:民众压制独裁时期勾结记录的冲动如此强烈。 25在另一个意大利的例子中,亚历山德罗·波特利(Alessandro Portelli)展示了关键细节如何迅速地被替换,以迎合不断变化的政治优先事项。路易吉·特拉斯图利(Luigi Trastulli)是一名钢铁工人,1949年在意大利特尔尼镇的一次示威活动中被警察杀害。这一事件给工人们带来了巨大的冲击,以至于很快人们就开始编造各种理由和背景来解释这一事件。尽管特拉斯图利是在反对意大利加入北约的抗议活动中遇害的,但20世纪70年代许多人的记忆却将这一事件重新定位为后来反对大规模裁员的示威活动的一部分,而对大多数参与者来说,裁员问题更为关键。特拉斯图利也被描绘成被警察的枪火压制在工厂墙上,这一画面强调了他的烈士身份。这类研究的重点并非剥离层层叠加的痕迹和扭曲,直至真相的核心显露出来。正如波特利所解释的那样,

The politics of oral history are manifest as much in what is forgotten as what is remembered. Given the limited capacity which most people have for remembering the past, this is hardly surprising; but the suppression also answers to political need. Researching how workers in the city of Turin remembered the Fascist period, Luisa Passerini was struck how they recalled the Fascist takeover in 1922–3 and the regime’s collapse in 1943, but not the intervening two decades when Mussolini was firmly in the saddle: such was the force of the popular impulse to suppress the record of collusion during the period of dictatorship.25 In another Italian example, Alessandro Portelli demonstrates how quickly crucial details can be substituted in deference to changing political priorities. Luigi Trastulli was a steel-worker killed by police during a demonstration in the Italian town of Terni in 1949. This event administered such a shock to the workers that very soon appropriate causes and circumstances were being improvised to render it explicable. Whereas Trastulli had been killed during a protest against Italian entry into NATO, many of the memories current during the 1970s relocated the event as part of a later demonstration against the mass lay-off of workers, a much more critical issue for most of the participants. Trastulli was also portrayed as having been pinned against the factory wall by police fire, in an image that emphasized his status as a martyr. In research of this kind the point is not to peel away the accretions and distortions until the kernel of truth is exposed. As Portelli explains,

事实与记忆之间的差异最终提升了口述史料作为历史文献的价值。这种差异并非源于错误的记忆……而是由记忆和想象力积极而创造性地产生,旨在理解关键事件和整个历史。26

the discrepancy between fact and memory ultimately enhances the value of the oral sources as historical documents. It is not caused by faulty recollections … but actively and creatively generated by memory and imagination in an effort to make sense of crucial events and of history in general.26

近期的评论人士指出,一种普遍存在的“记忆热潮”或“纪念文化”正在兴起,人们通过家谱、兵役记录、老照片等方式寻求与公共历史建立个人联系。 27这种联系的需求在身份政治领域最具政治意义。弱势群体对近期历史的看法往往与国家认可的版本相悖,并被珍视地保留下来,作为群体意识的象征。布里克斯顿、托克斯泰斯和托特纳姆的黑人居民对20世纪80年代当地发生的骚乱的记忆,与全国“主流观点”截然不同。社区的政治意识越强,就越需要以有利于自身政治利益的方式来理解过去。当过去尚未“结束”——当集体记忆所承载的怨恨和紧张关系至今仍然存在时,记忆的冲突最为尖锐。格雷厄姆·道森对北爱尔兰民众记忆的研究表明,尽管自《贝尔法斯特协议》(又称《耶稣受难日协议》)签署以来已停战十余年,但各社区对近期历史的认知分歧几乎与以往一样严重。28

Recent commentators have identified a widespread ‘memory boom’ or a ‘memorial culture’, in which individuals seek a personal link with the public past, through genealogy, military records, old photographs, and so on.27 The demand for such a link has most political bite in the arena of identity politics. Subordinated groups often have a perspective on the recent past that is at variance with the approved national version and which is jealously preserved as a badge of group consciousness. The black residents of Brixton, Toxteth and Tottenham do not recall the riots that occurred there in the 1980s in the same terms as does ‘received opinion’ in the nation at large. The more politically conscious the community is, the greater the need to make sense of the past in ways that are politically enabling. The conflict of memories is sharpest when the past is not yet ‘over’ – when the grievances and tensions that collective memory recounts are still alive today. Graham Dawson’s study of popular memory in Northern Ireland shows that, despite more than ten years’ of truce since the Good Friday Agreement, the communities are almost as divided in their sense of the recent past as they have ever been.28

北约

NATO

北大西洋公约组织(北约)是由美国领导的西方列强军事联盟,成立于1949年,旨在遏制和平衡苏联及其盟国的威胁。苏联及其盟国于次年组建了自己的联盟​​——华沙条约组织。在冷战时期,那些同情苏联或对日益依赖军事联盟和原子武器抱有疑虑的人,对加入北约持争议态度。

North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is an American-led military alliance of the Western powers created in 1949 and aimed at containing and counterbalancing the threat from the Soviet Union and its allies, which responded the following year by forming their own alliance structure, the Warsaw Pact. Adherence to NATO was controversial with those who sympathized with the Soviet Union in the Cold War, or who distrusted the increasing reliance on military alliances and atomic weaponry.

耶稣受难日协议

Good Friday Agreement

在经历了近三十年的“动乱”之后,北爱尔兰各政党与英国和爱尔兰共和国政府于1998年4月达成协议。协议生效后,北爱尔兰的族群间暴力冲突有所减少,英国军队撤出街头,地方自治得以恢复。

After nearly thirty years of ‘the Troubles’, an agreement was made in April 1998 between the political parties of Northern Ireland and the governments of Britain and the Irish Republic. As a result, inter-communal violence in the province was scaled down, British troops were withdrawn from the streets, and devolved self-government was restored.

历史学家最初运用口述史料,是为了将人类经验的特殊性重新置于历史论述的核心地位。这项技术得益于社会学和人类学的现代发展,如今却被用于支持一项与这些学科普遍化、理论导向的本质截然不同的研究。事实上,口述史的实践更多地侧重于历史探究的重现而非解释层面。与其他学术创新者一样,口述史学家过去也倾向于夸大自身的专业知识,声称他们拥有独特的——或许是唯一的——资格去重现人类经验中“失落”的领域。口述史料在这些领域的贡献毋庸置疑。然而,认为历史学家通过聆听“过去的声音”就能以一种真实而直接的方式重现这些被忽视的历史片段,这种观点是站不住脚的。口述史料与文献史料一样,需要批判性的分析以及对其文化和社会背景的敏锐感知。口述历史如果遵循这一学科,就能揭示出大众历史意识形成的独特见解——这对于所有历史学家来说都应该是一个持久的兴趣点。

The use of oral evidence by historians began as a means of restoring the particularities of human experience to their central place in historical discourse. A technique that owes its modern development to sociology and anthropology has been enlisted in support of an enterprise foreign to the generalizing, theory-oriented nature of those disciplines. In fact the practice of oral history has had more to do with the re-creational than the explanatory side of historical enquiry. Like other academic innovators, oral historians have tended in the past to advance exaggerated claims for their expertise, maintaining that they are uniquely – perhaps exclusively – qualified to recover ‘lost’ areas of human experience. The contribution of oral sources in these areas can hardly be denied. What cannot be sustained, however, is the notion that the historian, by listening to ‘the voice of the past’, can re-create these neglected strands of history with an authentic immediacy. No less than documentary sources, oral sources demand critical analysis and a sensitivity to their cultural and social context. Submitted to that discipline, what oral history reveals is a unique insight into the formation of popular historical consciousness – something that should be of abiding interest to all historians.

第七章

VII

在历史研究中,将记录下来的回忆称为“口述历史”并不恰当,因为这暗示着一种类似于外交史或经济史的新学科。口述历史并非历史学的新分支,而是一种新的研究方法。然而,它对于一种新型的历史研究——记忆研究——至关重要。记忆之所以如此引人注目,并非因为它只是众多需要历史化的主题之一,而是因为它对于理解人们与过去的关系至关重要。这种关系绝非简单。个人回忆必须与集体记忆相比较;自发记忆必须与人为操纵的记忆相比较;民族传统必须与地方传统相比较。我们已经看到,口述传统的社会功能在文字出现之前的社会中尤为清晰。印刷文化和城市化使情况变得复杂,但它们并没有改变其本质。在所有社会中,集体记忆既是过去经验的延续,也是当下需求对过去的一种强加。正是这种悖论的意义,解释了历史学中记忆研究的魅力所在。

The place of recorded reminiscence in historical enquiry is not best served by calling it ‘oral history’, which suggests a new specialism analogous to diplomatic or economic history. Oral history is not a new branch of history but a new technique. But it is nevertheless central to a new kind of historical enquiry – the study of memory. And the reason why memory is attracting so much attention is not that it represents one more topic to be historicized along with all the others, but because it is fundamental to understanding people’s relationship with the past. That relationship is anything but simple. Individual recall has to be weighed against collective memory; spontaneous memory against manipulated memory; national against local tradition. We saw how the social function of oral tradition is particularly clear in pre-literate societies. Print culture and urbanization complicate the picture, but they do not alter its essentials. In all societies collective memory is both the survival of past experience and an imposition by the requirements of the present on that past. It is the implications of that paradox that account for the fascination of memory studies in history.

最后两点观察或许能更深刻地解释历史学家如今对记忆的关注。首先,如果说后现代主义的盛行已经动摇了传统学院派历史的真理主张(见第七章),那么记忆研究的吸引力或许恰恰在于它关注的是印象和建构,而非事实本身。如果历史学家的学术研究不再依赖于证据,那么他们若想与主流认识论保持一致,便会更有说服力。 29其次,记忆的学院派历史研究与社会上蓬勃发展的记忆文化相辅相成,涵盖了家族史、工业考古以及对皇家历史细节的关注等诸多主题。拉斐尔·塞缪尔认为,这些大众化的记忆表现形式比大多数目光短浅的学院派学者的研究成果更为重要,也更有意义。 30 事实上,一些历史学家察觉到一种权威危机,因为历史学家正与大众记忆文化争夺关注。31说这是一场生存斗争有些夸张,但后现代主义的挑战和所谓的权威危机都提醒我们,记忆是文化不可或缺的一部分,历史学家对理解文化所作出的贡献不能脱离更广泛的知识背景。

Two final observations suggest a more penetrating explanation of the attention which historians are now giving to memory. First, if the vogue for Postmodernism has undermined the truth claims of conventional academic history (see Chapter 7), the study of memory may appeal precisely because it deals with impressions and constructions rather than addressing matters of fact. Historians who wish to be in tune with the prevalent epistemology carry much more conviction if their scholarship no longer turns on evidential proof.29 Second, the academic history of memory has grown up alongside a burgeoning memory culture in society at large, covering such varied themes as family history, industrial archaeology, and the attention given to the minutiae of royal history. Raphael Samuel regarded these popular manifestations of memory as more vital and more rewarding than most of the output of professionally blinkered academics.30 Indeed some historians detect a crisis of authority, as historians vie with the lay popular culture of memory for attention.31 To speak of a struggle for survival overstates the case, but both the challenge of Postmodernism and the alleged crisis of authority remind us that memory is integral to culture, and that the contribution that historians make to its understanding cannot be abstracted from the wider intellectual setting.

收集口述历史

Gathering oral history

随着口述历史的日益普及,历史学家在收集回忆录方面也变得更加成熟。专门研究二十世纪历史的博物馆和档案馆(例如帝国战争博物馆)通常会在受访者在世时就投入资源进行口述记忆访谈。电视历史节目也长期运用口述历史访谈,受访者往往是二十世纪重大历史事件中的领军人物。这些重要的第一手证词价值连城,但需要谨慎对待:受访者可能希望记录下“他们自己”对事件的描述。

As oral history has grown in popularity so historians have become more sophisticated in how they set about collecting reminiscences. Museums and archives specializing in the history of the twentieth century (for example the Imperial War Museum) often invest in the gathering of oral memory interviews while potential interviewees are still alive. Television history has long made use of oral history interviews, often with figures who played a leading role in important events of twentieth-century history. Such important first-hand testimony can be invaluable, but it needs to be treated with caution: interviewees can be wanting to get ‘their’ version of events on record.

口述历史学会出版手册,为该领域的新手提供指导。口述历史研究者需要牢记,受访者可能年老体弱,无法长时间接受采访。很少有受访者能够立即详细回忆起他们可能多年未曾想起的事件。历史学家们已经认识到,谨慎地切入研究主题至关重要,有时会提供当时的文物或音乐来帮助唤起记忆。记忆本身也需要谨慎对待。记忆有时可能非常清晰,即使过了很久;但另一方面,记忆也会欺骗人,看似确凿而详细的记忆可能会被其他证据推翻。

Oral history societies publish handbooks to give advice to novices in the field. The oral history researcher needs to bear in mind that interviewees may be very elderly and frail, and unable to take being interviewed for any lengthy session. Few interviewees can launch immediately into detailed reminiscence about events they might not have thought about for years. Historians have learned the value of approaching the main theme of the research carefully, sometimes providing artefacts or music from the period to help to trigger the memory. Memory itself has to be treated with great caution. It can be remarkably clear, even after a very long time; on the other hand, memory can play tricks, and what seem to be firm and detailed memories can be disproved by other evidence.

延伸阅读

Further reading

Geoffrey Cubitt《历史与记忆》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,2007 年。

Geoffrey Cubitt, History and Memory, Manchester University Press, 2007.

James Fentress & Chris Wickham《社会记忆》,Blackwell出版社,1992年。

James Fentress & Chris Wickham, Social Memory, Blackwell, 1992.

皮埃尔·诺拉,“记忆与历史之间:Les Lieux de mémoire”陈述XXVI,1989。

Pierre Nora, ‘Between memory and history: Les Lieux de mémoire’, Representations, XXVI, 1989.

Jan Vansina《口述传统作为历史》,James Currey出版社,1985年。

Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History, James Currey, 1985.

David Henige《口述历史》,朗文出版​​社,1982 年。

David Henige, Oral Historiography, Longman, 1982.

Paul Thompson《过去的声音:口述历史》,第3版,牛津大学出版社,2000年。

Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral History, 3rd edn, Oxford University Press, 2000.

Robert Perks & Alistair Thomson(编),《口述历史读本》,第2版,Routledge出版社,2006年。

Robert Perks & Alistair Thomson (eds), The Oral History Reader, 2nd edn, Routledge, 2006.

Sherna B. GluckDaphne Patai(编),《女性之言:女性主义口述历史实践》,Routledge 出版社,1991 年。

Sherna B. Gluck & Daphne Patai (eds), Women’s Words: The Feminist Practice of Oral History, Routledge, 1991.

Raphael Samuel & Paul Thompson (编), 《我们赖以生存的神话》,Routledge 出版社,1990 年。

Raphael Samuel & Paul Thompson (eds), The Myths We Live By, Routledge, 1990.

Alessandro Portelli《路易吉·特拉斯图利之死及其他故事:口述历史的形式与意义》,纽约州立大学出版社,1991 年。

Alessandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History, SUNY Press, 1991.

笔记

Notes

  1   James Fentress 和 Chris Wickham,《社会记忆》,Blackwell 出版社,1992 年,第 59 页。

  1  James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory, Blackwell, 1992, p. 59.

  2   Jan Vansina,《口述传统:历史方法论研究》,HM Wright 译,Routledge & Kegan Paul 出版社,1965 年。

  2  Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition: A Study in Historical Methodology, trans. H.M. Wright, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965.

  3   Jan Vansina,《伍特的孩子们》,威斯康星大学出版社,1978 年,第 19 页。

  3  Jan Vansina, The Children of Woot, Wisconsin University Press, 1978, p. 19.

  4   Donald R. Wright,《拔除昆塔·金特:论依赖百科全书式信息提供者的危险》,《非洲历史》第八卷,1981 年。

  4  Donald R. Wright, ‘Uprooting Kunta Kinte: on the perils of relying on encyclopaedic informants’, History in Africa, VIII, 1981.

  5   Jan Vansina,《现代卢旺达的前身:尼吉尼亚王国》,威斯康星大学出版社,2004 年。

  5  Jan Vansina, Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom, Wisconsin University Press, 2004.

  6   Dan Todman,《伟大的战争:神话与记忆》,Hambledon Continuum 出版社,2005 年;Malcolm Smith,《英国与 1940 年:历史、神话与大众记忆》,Routledge 出版社,2000 年。

  6  Dan Todman, The Great War: Myth and Memory, Hambledon Continuum, 2005; Malcolm Smith, Britain and 1940: History, Myth and Popular Memory, Routledge, 2000.

  7   Fentress 和 Wickham,《社会记忆》,第 92-96 页。

  7  Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory, pp. 92–6.

  8   Tim Judah,《塞尔维亚人:一部历史》,耶鲁大学出版社,1997 年,第 29-47 页,第 164 页。

  8  Tim Judah, The Serbs: A History, Yale University Press, 1997, pp. 29–47, 164.

  9   James Sharpe,《记住,记住11月5日:盖伊·福克斯和火药阴谋》,Profile出版社,2005年。

  9  James Sharpe, Remember, Remember the Fifth of November: Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, Profile, 2005.

10  皮埃尔·诺拉,“记忆与历史之间:Les Lieux de mémoire”,RepresentationsXXVI,1989 年,第 7-9 页。

10  Pierre Nora, ‘Between memory and history: Les Lieux de mémoire’, Representations, XXVI, 1989, pp. 7–9.

11   Pierre Nora(编),Les Lieux de mémoire,7 卷,Gallimard,1984-92。

11  Pierre Nora (ed.), Les Lieux de mémoire, 7 vols, Gallimard, 1984–92.

12   Jules Michelet,《人民》,1846 年,引自 Paul Thompson,《过去的声音:口述历史》,牛津大学出版社,1978 年,第 40 页。

12  Jules Michelet, Le Peuple, 1846, quoted in Paul Thompson, The Voice of the Past: Oral History, Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 40.

13   Bernard Donoughue 和 GW Jones,《赫伯特·莫里森》 ,魏登菲尔德和尼科尔森出版社,1973 年。

13  Bernard Donoughue and G.W. Jones, Herbert Morrison, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973.

14   Christopher Storm-Clark,“矿工,1870–1970:口述历史的一个试验案例”,《维多利亚研究》,第十五卷,1971年,第65-66页。

14  Christopher Storm-Clark, ‘The miners, 1870–1970: a test-case for oral history’, Victorian Studies, XV, 1971, pp. 65–6.

15  汤普森在他的方法论著作《过去的声音:口述历史》(第 2 版,牛津大学出版社,1988 年,第 124-131 页)中更完整地描述了他的抽样程序。

15  Thompson describes his sampling procedure more fully in his methodological work, The Voice of the Past: Oral History, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, 1988, pp. 124–31.

16   Raphael Samuel(编),《乡村生活与劳动》,Routledge & Kegan Paul,1975 年。

16  Raphael Samuel (ed.), Village Life and Labour, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1975.

17   Jerry White,《北伦敦最糟糕的街道:坎贝尔·邦克,伊斯灵顿,两次世界大战之间》,Routledge & Kegan Paul,1986 年;以及《罗斯柴尔德大厦:东区公寓楼的生活,1887-1920》,Routledge & Kegan Paul,1980 年。

17  Jerry White, The Worst Street in North London: Campbell Bunk, Islington, Between the Wars, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986, and Rothschild Buildings: Life in an East End Tenement Block, 1887–1920, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

18  汤普森,过去的声音

18  Thompson, Voice of the Past.

19   Ken Worpole,“幽灵般的人行道:地方工人阶级历史的政治意义”,载于 Raphael Samuel(编),《人民的历史与社会主义理论》,Routledge & Kegan Paul,1981 年,第 28 页。

19  Ken Worpole, ‘A ghostly pavement: the political implications of local working-class history’, in Raphael Samuel (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981, p. 28.

20   Michael Frisch,《共享权威:口述历史和公共历史的技艺与意义论文集》,纽约州立大学出版社,1990 年。

20  Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History, State University of New York Press, 1990.

21 Stephen Koss, 《泰晤士报文学副刊》 1975年 12 月 5 日第 1436 页对 Paul Thompson 的《爱德华时代》  的评论。

21  Stephen Koss, review of Paul Thompson’s The Edwardians in Times Literary Supplement, 5 December 1975, p. 1436.

22   Philip Abrams,《历史社会学》,开放书籍出版社,1982 年,第 331 页。

22  Philip Abrams, Historical Sociology, Open Books, 1982, p. 331.

23   White,《罗斯柴尔德大厦》,第 xiii 页。

23  White, Rothschild Buildings, p. xiii.

24  有关此方法的一个规模虽小但很有前途的例子,请参阅托特纳姆历史工作室,《往事如烟:在托特纳姆长大 1890–1920》,1982 年。

24  For a small-scale but promising example of this approach, see Tottenham History Workshop, How Things Were: Growing Up in Tottenham 1890–1920, 1982.

25   Luisa Passerini,“意大利法西斯主义下的工作意识形态和共识”,载于 Robert Perks 和 Alistair Thomson(编),《口述历史读本》,第 2 版,Routledge 出版社,2006 年,第 53-62 页。

25  Luisa Passerini, ‘Work ideology and consensus under Italian Fascism’, in Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (eds), The Oral History Reader, 2nd edn, Routledge, 2006, pp. 53–62.

26   Alessandro Portelli,《路易吉·特拉斯图利之死及其他故事:口述历史的形式与意义》,纽约州立大学出版社,1991 年,第 26 页。

26  Alessandro Portelli, The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History, State University of New York Press, 1991, p. 26.

27   Jay Winter,“当代历史研究中的记忆热潮”,《拉里坦》第21卷,2001年,第52-66页;Paula Hamilton,“世纪大甩卖?澳大利亚的记忆与历史意识”,载于Kate Hodgkin和Susannah Radstone,《有争议的过去:记忆的政治》,Routledge出版社,2003年,第136-152页。

27  Jay Winter, ‘The memory boom in contemporary historical studies’, Raritan, XXI, 2001, pp. 52–66; Paula Hamilton, ‘Sale of the century? Memory and historical consciousness in Australia’, in Kate Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone, Contested Pasts: the Politics of Memory, Routledge, 2003, pp. 136–52.

28   Graham Dawson,《与过去和解?记忆、创伤与爱尔兰冲突》,曼彻斯特大学出版社,2007 年。

28  Graham Dawson, Making Peace With the Past? Memory, Trauma and the Irish Troubles, Manchester University Press, 2007.

29   Hodgkin 和 Radstone,《有争议的过去》,编辑导言,第 2 页。

29  Hodgkin and Radstone, Contested Pasts, editors’ introduction, p. 2.

30  拉斐尔·塞缪尔,《记忆剧场》,第一卷:当代文化中的过去与现在,Verso出版社,1994年。

30  Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory, vol. I: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture, Verso, 1994.

31   Paula Hamilton,“记忆研究与文化史”,载于 Hsu-Ming Teo 和 Richard White(编),《澳大利亚文化史》,新南威尔士大学出版社,第 96 页。

31  Paula Hamilton, ‘Memory studies and cultural history’, in Hsu-Ming Teo and Richard White (eds), Cultural History in Australia, University of New South Wales Press, p. 96.

结论

Conclusion

最后四章展现了历史研究范围令人瞩目的多元化。这种多元化的基础在于对其他学科理论洞见的借鉴,尤其是政治经济学、人类学、文学批评和心理学。但我的论述远非全面。其他一些新的研究方向,例如将景观和物质文化作为历史资料、身体史和书籍史,在本书中只是略有提及,因为迄今为止它们的影响尚未如此显著;但在全面的论述中,每一项都值得深入探讨。所有这些创新共同构成了自兰克一个半世纪前奠定现代历史学术基础以来最重要的方法论进步。因此,历史研究的内容也得到了极大的拓展。它现在涵盖了完整的社会结构、集体心态的历史以及社会与自然环境之间不断演变的关系。尽管还有许多工作要做,但女性在历史记录中的存在感比以往任何时候都更加强烈。历史研究首次扩展到全球各个角落;没有任何文化被认为过于遥远或过于“原始”,以至于不会引起历史学家的关注。

The last four chapters testify to an impressive diversification in the scope of history. Underlying this diversity is a readiness to draw on the theoretical insights of other disciplines, notably political economy, anthropology, literary criticism and psychology. But my survey is far from complete. Other new departures such as the use of landscape and material culture as historical sources, the history of the body and the history of the book, have been only lightly touched on in this book, because until now their impact has not been so pronounced; but in a comprehensive survey each would merit extended discussion. Together all these innovations amount to the most significant methodological advance since Ranke laid the foundations of modern historical scholarship more than a century-and-a-half ago. As a result the content of historical study has been vastly extended, too. It now embraces social structures in their entirety, the history of collective mentalities, and the evolving relationship between society and the natural environment. Although much further work remains to be done, women are now more present in the historical record than they have ever been. And for the first time historical research now extends to every corner of the globe; no culture is deemed too remote or too ‘primitive’ for the attention of historians.

历史已经屈服了吗?

Has history surrendered?

过去五十年来的创新记录可以有不同的解读。它可以被视为历史学家向其他更“相关”学科所提供的时效性承诺的妥协——埃尔顿正是将这种观点发挥到了极致。¹根据这种观点,历史学研究范围的每一次扩展都意味着偏离了该学科的核心关注点(对埃尔顿而言,核心关注点始终是英国的宪政和行政史)。当前转向文化主题的趋势,在某种程度上也体现了这一点与后现代主义认识论相联系,它引发了关于历史终结的严峻警告。2一个更为乐观和宽容的结论会列举历史上历史学家成功吸收其他学科见解的例子,例如19世纪的语文学和法学。一切都取决于对其他学科贡献的开放态度是否与维护历史意识的基本要素相兼容。当然,存在这样的风险:宏大的社会理论可能会掩盖过去的特殊性;文本理论可能会将原始资料从其历史语境中剥离;口述历史可能会在无意中将当今的态度强加于被记忆的过去。但这些风险是众所周知的,本书试图论证的一点是,历史学家正是凭借这种意识,成功地抵制了来自学科之外的创新所带来的难以消化的影响。人们会想到E·P·汤普森长期以来反对马克思主义决定论倾向的努力,或是阿普尔比、亨特和雅各布对现代文本理论谨慎而审慎的接纳。³历史研究的魅力很大程度上源于其关键地位,许多其他领域的关注点在此交汇。历史学家通过将这些关注点纳入历史语境和历史进程的学科范畴,使之成为自身的研究对象。他们放弃了那些凌驾于历史之上或游离于历史之外的理论立场;其余的都被他们吸收,并在此过程中极大地丰富了历史学科。

This record of innovation over the past fifty years is open to different readings. It can be seen as a surrender by historians to the promise of topicality offered by other, more ‘relevant’ disciplines – a line of attack that Elton made very much his own.1 According to this view, every enlargement of history’s scope represents a departure from the central concern of the discipline (for Elton this remained the constitutional and administrative history of England). To the extent that the current turn to cultural themes is associated with a Postmodernist epistemology, it invites dire warnings of the end of history.2 A more optimistic and generous verdict would cite the occasions in the past when historians have successfully assimilated the insights of other disciplines, for example philology and the law in the nineteenth century. Everything depends on whether openness to contributions from elsewhere is compatible with upholding the essentials of historical awareness. There is certainly a danger that overarching social theories may obscure the particularity of the past, or that textual theory may wrench primary sources from their historical context, or that oral history may unwittingly read present-day attitudes into the remembered past. But these dangers are well understood, and one of the things that this book has sought to demonstrate is how historians, forearmed with that awareness, have successfully resisted the less digestible implications of innovations from outside the discipline. One thinks of E.P. Thompson’s long campaign against the determinist tendencies of Marxism, or the carefully qualified welcome given to modern textual theory by Appleby, Hunt and Jacob.3 A great deal of the excitement of historical study derives from its pivotal position where the concerns of many other fields converge. Historians make those concerns their own by submitting them to the disciplines of historical context and historical process. They relinquish those intellectual positions that stand above or outside history; the rest they assimilate, and in so doing enrich the subject beyond measure.

学科分散?

A fragmented discipline?

但历史研究范围的扩大带来了一个不容忽视的问题:历史学已成为一门缺乏明显内在连贯性的学科。在十九世纪,人们实际上可以将历史学与其他学科隔离开来,并将其职责限定于对政治事件的叙述。如果不是因为政治史和经济史往往各自独立发展,二十世纪初经济史的兴起本应给这种惯例带来更大的挑战。但如今情况已截然不同。随着社会史的成熟和文化史的兴起,研究历史的方法不仅更加多样化,而且越来越多的研究开始探索专题专业领域与传统政治史范畴之间的边界。以历史为核心几乎已不可能再维持下去;历史已经变成了一座由许多宅邸组成的房子,里面有无数的门和通道。

But the enlargement in the scope of historical enquiry presents one undeniable problem: history has become a discipline with very little apparent coherence. During the nineteenth century it was possible in practice to fence off history from other disciplines and to confine its brief to the narrative presentation of political events. The rise of economic history in the early twentieth century would have imposed greater strain on this convention had it not been for the fact that political and economic history tended to remain in separate compartments. But today the situation is very different. Not only has the range of approaches to the past expanded, with the maturing of social history and the arrival of cultural history. More and more research is conducted on the frontiers between thematic specialisms, and the traditional claim of political history to be the core of the subject is almost impossible to sustain any longer; history has become a house of many mansions, with numerous doors and passageways inside.

历史向来与逻辑学家的定义格格不入。但如今,它比以往任何时候都更需要用成对对立的概念来恰当地描述。它既关乎事件,也关乎结构;既关乎个体,也关乎群体;既关乎精神,也关乎物质力量。历史学家自身需要将叙事与分析技巧相结合,既展现同理心,也展现超脱。他们的学科既是重现,也是解释;既是艺术,也是科学;简而言之——回到本书的出发点之一——历史是一种难以归类的混合体。这些区别不应被视为相互对立的对立面,而应被视为互补的侧重点,它们共同构成了把握过去真实复杂性的可能性。用清晰的绝对概念来定义历史毫无益处——或许除了为某种尚未得到证实的新方法提供修辞上的支持之外。如果历史学家为了追求虚假的连贯性而对研究对象的诸多维度视而不见,那么他们将失去很多东西。

History has always been inimical to the definitions of the logician. But now more than ever it can only be adequately characterized in terms of paired opposites. It concerns both events and structures, both the individual and the mass, both mentalities and material forces. Historians themselves need to combine narrative with analytical skills, and to display both empathy and detachment. Their discipline is both re-creation and explanation, both art and science; in short – to return to one of the starting-points of this book – history is a hybrid which defies classification. These distinctions should be seen not as warring opposites but as complementary emphases, which together hold out the possibility of grasping the past in something like its real complexity. Nothing is to be gained from defining history in terms of lucid absolutes – except perhaps rhetorical support for some new approach whose credentials have yet to be established. A great deal will be lost if, in the interests of a spurious coherence, historians close their eyes to whole dimensions of their subject.

历史的目的

The purposes of history

最后,当前实践的多样性反映了历史功能的核心矛盾。只要人们对人性及人类创造力仍抱有兴趣,他们就会意识到,过去人类精神的每一次展现都值得关注,历史本身也具有研究价值。过去五十年间涌现的一些新方法显然属于这一人文主义传统。对集体心智的研究首先旨在重现生活在与我们截然不同的环境中的人们的情感和智慧,从而更充分地展现他们的人性。英国和其他工业化社会的口述历史学家致力于重现近代以来的日常经验,并将其视为自身价值所在。

Last but not least, the diversity of current practice reflects a central ambivalence in the function of history. For as long as men and women retain any interest in human nature and human creativity, they will recognize that every manifestation of the human spirit in the past has some claim on their attention, and that history is worth studying as an end in itself. Some of the new approaches during the past fifty years are recognizably part of this humanistic tradition. The study of collective mentalities is concerned in the first instance to re-create the emotions and intellect of people living in conditions very different from our own, so that their humanity can be more fully realized. Oral historians in Britain and other industrialized societies are committed to the recovery of everyday experience in the recent past as something of value in itself.

但近期史学界的创新趋势也深受这样一种信念的影响:历史的记录蕴含着对当代社会的启示。这种趋势几乎完全摒弃了以往历史学中关注的时事问题。二十世纪上半叶的职业历史已经终结。如今,历史学家们正悄然而坚定地重申其学科在提供指导和视角方面的地位。历史学家从社会科学中汲取的社会结构和社会变迁理论,最初是由马克思和韦伯等思想家提出的,旨在为当代问题做出贡献;这些理论被应用于城市史和家庭史等领域并取得了如此令人瞩目的成果,绝非偶然,因为这些领域直接关系到当今的当代问题。在卫生和刑事司法等热点领域,政策制定史旨在拓宽当代政治家对各种选择和限制的认识。宏观经济 及其所采用的定量方法,比其他任何历史分支都更加精细复杂,主要关注于探索国民经济增长和停滞的动态过程。放眼更广阔的领域,对非洲历史的研究证明,20 世纪 60 年代人们普遍认为,一股新的力量已经出现在世界舞台上,而人们对它的前身几乎一无所知。

But the innovative strain in recent historiography has also been strongly influenced by the conviction that the record of the past holds lessons for contemporary society. The almost total retreat from topical concerns which characterized the historical profession in the first half of the twentieth century has ended. Quietly but persistently, historians are now reasserting their subject’s claim to offer guidance and perspective. The theories of social structure and social change which historians have drawn from the social sciences were originally propounded by thinkers such as Marx and Weber as a contribution to contemporary problems; it is no accident that they have been applied with such interesting results to areas such as urban history and the history of the family, which directly address contemporary problems today. The history of policy-making in topical areas like health and criminal justice is intended to broaden the awareness of options and constraints among today’s politicians.4 Macro-economic history, and the quantitative methods that it has brought to greater sophistication than any other branch of history, is principally concerned to explore the dynamics of growth and stagnation in national economies. Looking further afield, the study of African history bears witness to a widespread sense in the 1960s that a new force had arrived on the world stage and that almost nothing was known of its antecedents.

宏观经济

macro-economic

关注国家或国际层面的宏观经济研究。

Concerned with the large study of economies, on a national or international level.

历史对所有人而言是否重要?

History for all?

当然,如果历史学家想要充分发挥其作为社会智慧传播者的潜力,就必须面向大众。在这方面,历史学界往往比较悲观。英国的历史学家时常感叹自身作品对大众的吸引力下降,并怀念过去他们的前辈著作广为流传的时代——即便他们的著作学术性欠佳。例如,大卫·坎纳丁就曾指出他的同行们“思想上的怯懦和古板的迂腐”,在他看来,正是这些特质吓跑了读者和学生。⁵诚然,对学术认可的执着追求往往忽略了非专业读者,但事实上,这种自毁式的态度远非历史学家的普遍现象。进入二十一世纪,英国历史学显然正在经历一场复兴,这主要得益于西蒙·沙玛和大卫·斯塔基等杰出的传播者。他们的作品非常注重娱乐性,这与他们在电视节目中的高曝光率相符。从长远来看,那些致力于向非专业读者介绍重大历史主题的历史学家更具意义。我们只需想想奥尔文·赫夫顿的著作即可。早期现代欧洲女性经历的全景图,或是埃里克·霍布斯鲍姆对“短暂”的二十世纪的冷静而广泛的反思。6过去,有思想的历史学家并没有被禁锢在象牙塔里,将来也没有理由如此。

Of course if historians are to fulfil their potential as providers of social wisdom, they must reach out to a popular audience. On this count the profession is much given to pessimism. Historians in Britain periodically lament their loss of lay appeal and look back fondly to a time when their predecessors were widely read – even if their books were short on scholarship. David Cannadine, for example, has testified to his colleagues’ ‘intellectual timidity and antiquarian pedantry’; qualities which in his view have driven away readers and students alike.5 It is certainly true that the relentless pursuit of academic recognition makes little allowance for a non-professional audience, but in fact this self-defeating attitude is far from universal among historians. At the beginning of the twenty-first century it is clear that in Britain history is enjoying a revival of popularity, spear-headed by such accomplished communicators as Simon Schama and David Starkey. Their works set a high premium on entertainment, consistent with their prominence in the television schedules. Of greater significance in the long run are those historians who seek to present major historical themes to a lay audience. One has only to call to mind Olwen Hufton’s panorama of women’s experience in early modern Europe, or Eric Hobsbawm’s sobering and wide-ranging reflections on the ‘short’ twentieth century.6 Historians with a message have not been confined to the ivory tower in the past, and there is no reason why they should be in future.

历史研究的未来最令人乐观之处在于,越来越多的历史学家开始研究具有现实意义的主题。他们这样做并非出于宣传目的,而是坚信历史研究的成果蕴含着宝贵的洞见。毫无疑问,这些洞见远不如“科学史”的拥护者所承认的那样清晰明了。如果社会指望历史学家给出确切的预测和明确的概括,那么它注定会失望。追求“现实意义”最终带来的,或许并非那么具体,但从长远来看却更有价值——那就是对我们当下处境中蕴藏的可能性更清晰的认识。只要历史学家始终秉持这一目标,他们的学科就能保持活力,并继续获得他们所处社会的支持。

What gives most cause for optimism about the future of historical studies is that more and more historians are now investigating themes of topical relevance. They do so not as a propaganda exercise, but in the conviction that there are valuable insights to be learnt from the findings of historical scholarship. No doubt those insights are less clear-cut than the champions of ‘scientific history’ would care to admit. If society looks to historians for ‘answers’ in the sense of firm predictions and unequivocal generalizations, it will be disappointed. What will emerge from the pursuit of ‘relevance’ is something less tangible but in the long run more valuable – a surer sense of the possibilities latent in our present condition. For as long as historians hold that end in view, their subject will retain its vitality and its claim on the support of the society in which they work.

笔记

Notes

1  参见 GR Elton,《回归本质》,剑桥大学出版社,1991 年。

1  See especially G.R. Elton, Return to Essentials, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

2  同上;Arthur Marwick,“历史研究的两种方法”,《当代史杂志》XXX,1995 年,第 5-35 页。

2  Ibid.; Arthur Marwick, ‘Two approaches to historical study’, Journal of Contemporary History, XXX, 1995, pp. 5–35.

3   EP Thompson,《理论的贫困》,Merlin出版社,1978年;Joyce Appleby、Lynn Hunt和Margaret Jacob,《讲述历史的真相》,Norton出版社,1994年。

3  E.P. Thompson, The Poverty of Theory, Merlin, 1978; Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About History, Norton, 1994.

4请参阅historyandpolicy.org网站  上发布的论文。

4  See the papers posted on the historyandpolicy.org website.

5   David Cannadine,《英国历史:过去、现在和未来?》,《过去与现在》第 116 卷,1987 年,第 178 页。

5  David Cannadine, ‘British history: past, present – and future?’, Past & Present, CXVI, 1987, p. 178.

6   Olwen Hufton,《她面前的前景:西方女性史,1500–1800》,HarperCollins,1995 年;Eric Hobsbawm,《极端时代:短暂的二十世纪,1914–1991》,Michael Joseph,1994 年。

6  Olwen Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: A History of Western Women, 1500–1800, HarperCollins, 1995; Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991, Michael Joseph, 1994.

指数

Index

Abrams, Philip 222223 , 321

Abrams, Philip 222223, 321

抽象理论, 215-216必要性

abstract theory, necessity for 215216

抽象167、216

abstraction 167, 216

学术史22、48、65、79、162、168

academic history 22, 48, 65, 79, 162, 168

    以及传记67

    and biography 67

    以及口述历史303304,326

    and oral history 303304, 326

    以及后殖民主义297

    and postcolonialism 297

    历史学家的素质166167

    qualities of a historian 166167

学术专著159160

academic monograph 159160

访问限制112114

access, restrictions on 112114

阿克顿,威廉勋爵99、123、161、181

Acton, Lord William 99, 123, 161, 181

历史改编201202

adaptation of history 201202

行政历史63

administrative history 63

审美选择199

aesthetic choices 199

非洲:

Africa:

    以及独立299

    and independence 299

以及    口述历史305、306、307

    and oral history 305, 306, 307

非洲侨民289

African diaspora 289

非洲历史16、49、134、162、190、291-292、303、333

African history 16, 49, 134, 162, 190, 291292, 303, 333

    作为欧洲扩张的一部分 189-190年)

    as part of European expansion 189190

非洲民族主义41

African nationalism 41

非洲中心主义43 , 289

Afrocentrism 43, 289

非历史视角224

ahistorical approach 224

时代错置9

anachronism 9

分析164、170

analysis 164, 170

    历史229

    of history 229

    多层153154

    multi–layered 153154

    资料来源122124

    of sources 122124

分析156158,182183

analytical history 156158, 182183

分析能力332

analytical skills 332

古代社会229

Ancient Society 229

安德森,本尼迪克特264

Anderson, Benedict 264

安德森,迈克尔159,298

Anderson, Michael 159, 298

“天使母亲” 276

‘angel mother’ 276

《盎格鲁-撒克逊编年史》第94页

Anglo–Saxon Chronicle 94

英祖战争47

Anglo–Zulu War 47

《学校年鉴》第66-67、76、156、163、234、259、268

Annales school 6667, 76, 156, 163, 234, 259, 268

人类学36

anthropology 36

    心态265267

    of mentality 265267

反殖民民族主义41

anti–colonial nationalism 41

Appleby, Joyce 205206 , 331

Appleby, Joyce 205206, 331

档案90、97、110-112

archives 90, 97, 110112

    殖民时期296297

    colonial 296297

    政府99、113

    government 99, 113

国家    档案馆128、131

    National Archives 128, 131

军备竞赛39

arms race 39

艺术247 , 248-251

art history 247, 248251

阿斯奎斯,HH 105106

Asquith, H.H. 105106

假设13、190

assumptions 13, 190

    受文化制约的129

    culture–bound 129

对4243    的提问

    questioning of 4243

非对称无知296

asymmetric ignorance 296

态度247

attitudes 247

澳大利亚历史323324

Australian history 323324

真实性124126

authenticity 124126

资料来源的作者身份93

authorship of sources 93

自传9596、129、130、316

autobiographies 9596, 129, 130, 316

过去的自主性13

autonomy of the past 13

前卫思想31

avant–garde thinking 31

意识,历史125,32

awareness, historical 125, 32

    传统版本,挑战2122

    conventional version, challenging of 2122

    摒弃过去:历史即进步1920

    dismissal of the past: history as progress 1920

    启蒙运动与浪漫主义25

    Enlightenment and the Romantics 25

    历史连续体1112

    historical continuum 1112

    历史主义:将过去从现在中解放出来67

    historicism: liberating past from present 67

    大众历史的神话2324

    myths of popular history 2324

民族主义, 15-17世纪人为    创造的传统

    nationalism, invented traditions of 1517

    怀旧1719

    nostalgia 1719

    “他者性” 811

    ‘otherness’ 811

    历史时期2425

    periods of history 2425

    以及大众社会记忆13

    and popular social memory 13

    传统,对13-14世纪的影响

    tradition, distorting effects of 1314

    另见 社会记忆

    see also social memory

背景原因153

background causes 153

贝林,伯纳德77

Bailyn, Bernard 77

《贝尔福宣言》关于巴勒斯坦未来的131-132

Balfour Declaration on the future of Palestine 131132

班恩,斯蒂芬250

Bann, Stephen 250

巴洛克253

Baroque 253

巴拉克拉夫,杰弗里50

Barraclough, Geoffrey 50

巴特,罗兰196,197

Barthes, Roland 196, 197

贝叶挂毯251253

Bayeux Tapestry 251253

加州贝利80

Bayly, C.A. 80

贝克尔,卡尔·M. 193

Becker, Carl M. 193

行为,对36-38的理解

behaviour, understanding of 3638

信念76 , 306

beliefs 76, 306

巴巴,霍米287,290,295

Bhabha, Homi 287, 290, 295

偏差68、92、130、180、190

bias 68, 92, 130, 180, 190

传记6769、73、134、151、260

biographies 6769, 73, 134, 151, 260

黑人历史5 , 192

Black history 5, 192

    另见 非洲历史

    see also African history

黑人身份43

black identity 43

马克·布洛赫66、93、124、138、160、185、202、250、262

Bloch, Marc 66, 93, 124, 138, 160, 185, 202, 250, 262

蓝皮书107、133

Blue Books 107, 133

身体, 67年的历史

body, history of 67

篝火之夜310

Bonfire Night 310

书籍93

books 93

67年    的历史

    history of 67

布罗代尔,费尔南83、150、163、164、228、234、268

Braudel, Fernand 83, 150, 163, 164, 228, 234, 268

英国宪法第142-143

British Constitution 142143

英国外交部120

British Foreign Office 120

英国历史,后殖民主义视角下的293 - 296年重新评价

British history, postcolonial reappraisal of 293296

大英图书馆109

British Library 109

    声音档案馆315

    Sound Archive 315

英国统治巴勒斯坦143年

British rule in Palestine 143

英国42、294、295

Britishness 42, 294, 295

报纸93

broadsheets 93

布克哈特,雅各布188

Burckhardt, Jakob 188

伯克,彼得2122 , 247248 , 250

Burke, Peter 2122, 247248, 250

伯顿,安托瓦内特293

Burton, Antoinette 293

伯里,JB 191

Bury, J.B. 191

商业史7576

business history 7576

巴特菲尔德赫伯特21,191-192,210

Butterfield, Herbert 21, 191192, 210

内阁秘书处100、113

Cabinet Secretariat 100, 113

凯撒,《尤利乌斯传94、115

Caesar, Julius 94, 115

计算,深思熟虑69

calculation, deliberate 69

'日历' 110

‘calendars’ 110

卡姆登,威廉122

Camden, William 122

卡米萨起义(法国)308309

Camisard revolt (France) 308309

坎纳丁,大卫47,333

Cannadine, David 47, 333

资本主义(现代资产阶级)社会229

Capitalist (modern bourgeois) Society 229

卡莱尔托马斯8,149

Carlyle, Thomas 8, 149

卡尔,EH 20、3940、53、152、177、183、199

Carr, E.H. 20, 3940, 53, 152, 177, 183, 199

历史分类5884

categorization of history 5884

    《年鉴》第66-67

    Annales school 6667

    传记6769

    biography 6769

    经济史74

    economic history 74

    经济史和政治史的相互作用,75

    economic history and political history, interplay of 75

    精英,超越65 - 66年的历史

    elite, history beyond the 6566

    企业与经济增长7576

    enterprise and economic growth 7576

    全球化8081

    globalization 8081

    黑格尔与辩证法84

    Hegel and dialectic 84

    地方史8182

    local history 8182

    微观史与总体史8283

    microhistory and total history 8283

政治    史5960,63 – 65

    political history 5960, 6365

    主题6163

    subject matter 6163

    在动荡的时代6061

    in turbulent times 6061

    宗教史7778

    religious history 7778

    社会史7072

    social history 7072

    社会结构7273

    social structure 7273

    都铎王朝通货膨胀84

    Tudor inflation 84

    世界历史79

    world history 79

因果关系153、157、187

causation 153, 157, 187

原因和结果, 205的模式

cause and consequence, patterns of 205

因果关系,167种模式

cause and effect, patterns of 167

原因,历史151152

causes, historical 151152

潜在原因152153

causes, latent 152153

庆祝历史15

celebratory history 15

审查制度133

censorship 133

96、101、110、139-140次人口普查

censuses 96, 101, 110, 139140

Chakrabarty ,Dipesh 296,297

Chakrabarty, Dipesh 296, 297

查克拉沃蒂·斯皮瓦克, 加亚特里287 , 297

Chakravorty Spivak, Gayatri 287, 297

衡平法院第99号

Chancery 99

变化,历史216,217

change, historical 216, 217

宪章运动276

Chartism 276

乔叟,杰弗里98

Chaucer, Geoffrey 98

化学测试125

chemical testing 125

奇美拉50

chimera 50

基督教艺术253

Christian art 253

编年史94-95、98、129页​

chronicles 9495, 98, 129

教堂法庭101102

Church courts 101102

教会记录101102、103、108

Church records 101102, 103, 108

丘吉尔,温斯顿16、38、95

Churchill, Winston 16, 38, 95

民事登记101

civil registration 101

Clapham JH 76,233

Clapham, J.H. 76, 233

Clark TJ 249,252

Clark, T.J. 249, 252

克拉克,彼得238

Clarke, Peter 238

72-73班​

class 7273

冲突230231

conflict 230231

意识267268

consciousness 267268

希腊和罗马的古典传统33

classical tradition of Greece and Rome 33

分类9293

classification 9293

治安法官102

Clerk of the Peace 102

克利俄(缪斯)168169

Clio (muse) 168169

计量学224

Cliometrics 224

“封闭期” 113

‘closed period’ 113

科布,理查德46、52-53、120、137-138、142、167-168、189

Cobb, Richard 46, 5253, 120, 137138, 142, 167168, 189

科贝特,威廉44

Cobbett, William 44

科尔,GDH 71

Cole, G.D.H. 71

合作史160162

collaborative history 160162

集体记忆1、2、303、304-305、312、313、323、326​​

collective memory 1, 2, 303, 304305, 312, 313, 323, 326

    以及纪念仪式309310

    and commemorative ritual 309310

308    的道德力量

    moral power of 308

集体心态268 , 332

collective mentalities 268, 332

集体潜意识271

collective subconscious 271

科利,琳达69

Colley, Linda 69

科林伍德,RG 179、186、194

Collingwood, R.G. 179, 186, 194

殖民地档案296297

colonial archives 296297

英国的殖民地移民295

colonial immigrants in Britain 295

殖民地事务部档案133

Colonial Office files 133

殖民主义, 286年末

colonialism, end of 286

纪念仪式15 , 309310

commemorative ritual 15, 309310

共产主义,公元236 - 239年衰落

Communism, fall of 236239

可比性139140

comparability 139140

比较164166,239

comparative history 164166, 239

比较法79

comparative method 79

跨时间段的比较34

comparison across time 34

复杂度153

complexity 153

作品167

composition 167

Comte, Auguste 178 , 223

Comte, Auguste 178, 223

概念化167

conceptualization 167

忏悔模式207

confessional mode 207

保密性112113

confidentiality 112113

记忆冲突325

conflict of memories 325

日常生活各方面的关联性316317

connectedness of aspects of daily life 316317

康奈尔-史密斯,戈登193

Connell–Smith, Gordon 193

意识6、23、267-268、323、325

consciousness 6, 23, 267268, 323, 325

共识186-187不可能

consensus, impossibility of 186187

后果,历史151152

consequences, historical 151152

长期后果152153

consequences, long–term 152153

文件保存109112

conservation of documents 109112

保守主义48 , 190 , 220-221

conservatism 48, 190, 220221

与已知事实的一致性125

consistency with known facts 125

宪政6263,215

constitutional history 6263, 215

326座建筑

constructions 326

消费, 78年历史

consumption, history of 78

当代史, 52的必要性

contemporary history, necessity for 52

上下文32、68、126-127、131-132、189-191、204-205

context 32, 68, 126127, 131132, 189191, 204205

    意识11

    awareness 11

    以及行为3638

    and behaviour 3638

原因和后果152

causes and consequences 152

    互文性:文本与语境196197

    intertexuality: text and context 196197

    寻找起源191

    search for origins 191

    自我意识和同伴互评208

    self–awareness and peer review 208

连续体,历史1112

continuum, historical 1112

传统版本,挑战2122

conventional version, challenging of 2122

转换78

conversion 78

版权库109

copyright libraries 109

生活成本指数140

cost–of–living index 140

科顿,罗伯特爵士114

Cotton, Sir Robert 114

县档案馆112

county record offices 112

法庭记录101102、103、136 – 137​

court records 101102, 103, 136137

考林,莫里斯68

Cowling, Maurice 68

克里米亚97

Crimea 97

批判性方法123

critical approach 123

克罗斯曼,理查德107

Crossman, Richard 107

库比特,杰弗里23

Cubitt, Geoffrey 23

文化人类学215

cultural anthropology 215

文化证据与文化转向246271

cultural evidence and the cultural turn 246271

    年鉴学派:历史心理学259

    Annales school: historical psychology 259

    人类学265267

    anthropology 265267

    艺术史248251

    art history 248251

    贝叶挂毯251253

    Bayeux Tapestry 251253

    文化议程的益处和局限性269270

    benefits and limitations of cultural agenda 269270

    弗洛伊德与精神分析270271

    Freud and psychoanalysis 270271

    弗洛伊德与心理史259260

    Freud and psychohistory 259260

    文化转向的影响267269

    impact of cultural turn 267269

    语言话语与政治语言263264

    linguistic discourse and language of politics 263264

    文学理论262

    literary theory 262

    摄影与电影255257

    photography and film 255257

    大众文化:前文字时代和现代253255

    popular culture: pre–literate and modern 253255

    心理史,对第261-262页的反对意见

    psychohistory, objections to 261262

    集体心理学260261

    psychology of the collective 260261

    文化史写作257258

    writing cultural history 257258

文化霸权与语言202203

cultural hegemony and language 202203

文化史67、136、203、215、248、268-269、331

cultural history 67, 136, 203, 215, 248, 268269, 331

    含义280281

    of meaning 280281

    以及女性历史284

    and women’s history 284

文化内部主义43

cultural insiderism 43

文化记忆,口述历史,如第323-325

cultural memory, oral history as 323325

文化狭隘主义262

cultural parochialism 262

文化转向280281

cultural turn 280281

    对殖民历史的承认与后殖民历史297298

    acknowledgement of and postcolonial history 297298

    另见 文化证据和文化转向

    see also cultural evidence and cultural turn

文化主义235

culturalism 235

文化15

culture 15

    高247、253、254

    high 247, 253, 254

    低254

    low 254

    热门247、253255

    popular 247, 253255

    日常生活,第316-317各方面的联系

    daily life, connectedness of aspects of 316317

道尔顿,休106

Dalton, Hugh 106

达恩顿,罗伯特266,267

Darnton, Robert 266, 267

戴维多夫,莱昂诺尔280

Davidoff, Leonore 280

戴维斯,娜塔莉泽蒙158 , 264 , 266

Davis, Natalie Zemon 158, 264, 266

道森,格雷厄姆325

Dawson, Graham 325

《巴黎之死》 第46集

Death in Paris 46

《独立宣言》24

Declaration of Independence 24

解构196198、202204、208、262

deconstruction 196198, 202204, 208, 262

奉献条款136

dedicatory clause 136

演绎推理209

deductive reasoning 209

德里达,雅克196

Derrida, Jacques 196

描述153、164

description 153, 164

    历史可追溯至149 - 150年

    history as 149150

第332分遣队

detachment 332

决定31 , 219-220 , 228-229 , 232​

determinism 31, 219220, 228229, 232

生产与社会变迁中的辩证法230

dialectic in production and social change 230

    日记93、98、99、106-107、108、113

    diaries 93, 98, 99, 106107, 108, 113

狄更斯,查尔斯98

Dickens, Charles 98

差异9、10、32、33、35-36

difference 9, 10, 32, 33, 3536

    性279、280、281

    sexual 279, 280, 281

    另见 “他者性”

    see also ‘Otherness’

外交108

diplomacy 108

外交史61、100-101、151、193

diplomatic history 61, 100101, 151, 193

外交学125

Diplomatics 125

直接原因153

direct causes 153

132、196-197、202、263-264、282页​

discourse 132, 196197, 202, 263264, 282

    反向43,289

    reverse 43, 289

    另见 解构

    see also deconstruction

摒弃过去:历史即进步1920

dismissal of the past: history as progress 1920

失真68、92、95、129-130、132、134、208

distortion 68, 92, 95, 129130, 132, 134, 208

    不完整或有瑕疵的记录180

    incomplete or tainted record 180

    寻找起源191

    search for origins 191

神圣天意19 , 30

Divine Providence 19, 30

纪录片256

documentary film 256

文献资料88116

documentary material 88116

    访问限制112114

    access, restrictions on 112114

    档案110112

    archives 110112

    教会记录101102

    Church records 101102

    保护与出版109110

    conservation and publication 109110

日记106107

diaries 106107

    文献作为参考资料98

    literature as source material 98

    地方政府和私营企业102104

    local government and private firms 102104

    纳米尔,路易斯爵士115116

    Namier, Sir Lewis 115116

    叙事和回忆录9396

    narratives and memoirs 9396

    官方文件和报纸9697

    official papers and newspapers 9697

    一手和二手资料9193

    primary and secondary sources 9193

    私人文件104106

    private papers 104106

    记录来源9899

    record sources 9899

    罗马历史学家115

    Roman historians 115

    讽刺作为一种来源115

    satire as a source 115

    专业资源和技能89

    specialist sources and skills 89

    州记录99101

    State records 99101

    资料的存续108109

    survival of sources 108109

    挖掘原始资料114116

    unearthing source material 114116

    书面文字9091

    written word 9091

《末日审判书127、131、148

Domesday Book 127, 131, 148

君士坦丁124 - 125年的捐赠

Donation of Constantine 124125

杜比,乔治268

Duby, Georges 268

敦刻尔克23

Dunkirk 23

经济史67、74、157、179、224、233-234、331

economic history 67, 74, 157, 179, 224, 233234, 331

    以及Annales学校66

    and Annales school 66

    以及商业历史76

    and business history 76

    以及消费史78

    and history of consumption 78

    伦敦政治经济学院66

    London School of Economics 66

以及    政治65、75

    and political history 65, 75

    以及社会结构73

    and social structure 73

经济主义235

economism 235

自我270271

ego 270271

哀歌调70

elegiac tone 70

精英,超越65 - 66年的历史

elite, history beyond the 6566

埃利奥特,JH 165166

Elliott, J.H. 165166

Elton ,GR 4546,163,176,183,193 194,330

Elton, G.R. 4546, 163, 176, 183, 193194, 330

解放潜力205

emancipatory potential 205

同理心8、9、13、168、178-179、186、258、332

empathy 8, 9, 13, 168, 178179, 186, 258, 332

    以及文化遗产52

    and cultural heritage 52

    以及经济史74

    and economic history 74

    以及政治史193

    and political history 193

经验方法177

empirical method 177

弗里德里希·恩格斯227 , 228229 , 241242

Engels, Friedrich 227, 228229, 241242

Engerman,SL 224

Engerman, S.L. 224

英国内战54 , 184-185 , 240-241

English Civil War 54, 184185, 240241

英国革命47、54、263

English Revolution 47, 54, 263

启蒙运动19、20、25、30、60

Enlightenment 19, 20, 25, 30, 60

企业与经济增长7576

enterprise and economic growth 7576

环境史67

environmental history 67

认识论资格206

epistemological credentials 206

本质主义15、16

essentialism 15, 16

建制派意见97

establishment opinion 97

民族认同43

ethnic identity 43

欧洲中心主义10

Eurocentrism 10

欧洲历史161

European history 161

埃文斯,理查德· J . 51,158,206

Evans, Richard J. 51, 158, 206

Evans Pritchard,EE 221222,265

Evans–Pritchard, E.E. 221222, 265

伊芙琳,约翰106

Evelyn, John 106

证据261

evidence 261

    故意删除132133

    deliberate removal of 132133

    不知情的136138

    unwitting 136138

    另见 文化证据

    see also cultural evidence

经验168171,268

experience 168171, 268

解释, 205-206的必要性

explanation, necessity for 205206

解释模式270

explanatory mode 270

显式理论223

explicit theory 223

外部批评 真实性

external criticism see authenticity

事实182183

facts 182183

    选择与拒绝183184

    selection and rejection 183184

熟悉度3435

familiarity 3435

家族史11、34、41-42、191、276、298-299、333

family history 11, 34, 4142, 191, 276, 298299, 333

法西斯主义31

Fascism 31

故事片256257

feature films 256257

Febvre, Lucien 66 , 159 , 259

Febvre, Lucien 66, 159, 259

感受178

feelings 178

女权主义56 , 203 , 238 , 275 , 276 , 280

feminism 56, 203, 238, 275, 276, 280

    另见 女性史

    see also women’s history

芬特雷斯,詹姆斯305

Fentress, James 305

封建社会229

Feudal Society 229

研究领域,相关4850

fields of study, relevant 4850

菲格斯,奥兰多150

Figes, Orlando 150

影片255257

film 255257

金融机构108

financial houses 108

第一次世界大战,170 - 171年的起源

First World War, origins of 170171

第一手回忆录313314

first–hand memories 313314

第一人称逐字记录参见 记忆和口述历史

first–person verbatim reporting see memory and oral history

费舍尔,弗里茨171

Fischer, Fritz 171

菲茨帕特里克,大卫105

Fitzpatrick, David 105

福格尔,RW 224

Fogel, R.W. 224

生产力(生产力227、228、230、231、232、234

forces of production (productive forces) 227, 228, 230, 231, 232, 234

福特,亨利​​29

Ford, Henry 29

伪造124125,132

forgeries 124125, 132

“遗忘” 3536

‘forgetting’ 3536

历史写作形式149

forms of historical writing 149

福斯特,EM 129

Forster, E.M. 129

福柯,米歇尔44,197,198,287

Foucault, Michel 44, 197, 198, 287

基础神话4

foundation myth 4

开国元勋4

Founding Fathers 4

碎片化162 , 331332

fragmentation 162, 331332

法国66

France 66

    另见 法国大革命

    see also French Revolution

自由意志31

free will 31

《信息自由法》(1975 年)第 113 条

Freedom of Information Act (1975) 113

弗里曼,EA 61

Freeman, E.A. 61

法国大革命8、25、31、32、46、48、64

French Revolution 8, 25, 31, 32, 46, 48, 64

英国对92的    反应

    British reactions to 92

    语言话语263

    linguistic discourse 263

弗洛伊德,西格蒙德259260,261,270271

Freud, Sigmund 259260, 261, 270271

弗里施,迈克尔319

Frisch, Michael 319

弗鲁瓦萨尔,让94

Froissart, Jean 94

Galbraith VH 4546,100,148

Galbraith, V.H. 4546, 100, 148

同性恋历史282

gay history 282

盖伊,彼得260

Gay, Peter 260

克利福德·格尔茨266

Geertz, Clifford 266

性别史44 , 274285

gender history 44, 274285

    性别文化建构281282

    cultural creation of gender 281282

    以及意义的文化史280281

    and cultural history of meaning 280281

    以及家族史298299

    and family history 298299

    赫夫顿,奥尔文:《她面前的前景 》277

    Hufton, Olwen: The Prospect Before Her 277

    以及马克思主义理论279280

    and Marxist theory 279280

    以及新的权力两极分化282285

    and new polarities of power 282285

    以及两性关系279

    and relations between the sexes 279

    另见 女性史

    see also women’s history

概括221222

generalization 221222

尤金·吉诺维斯237

Genovese, Eugene 237

绅士阶层争议73

gentry controversy 73

威尔士的杰拉德9495 , 129

Gerald of Wales 9495, 129

德国历史主义6061

German historicism 6061

德国身份4243

German identity 4243

日耳曼学会229

Germanic Society 229

德国5455

Germany 5455

本,爱德华60,123,168

Gibbon, Edward 60, 123, 168

吉尔罗伊,保罗294

Gilroy, Paul 294

格莱斯顿,威廉·尤尔特106

Gladstone, William Ewart 106

公开性(glasnost)36

glasnost (‘openness’) 36

全球67、80-81、83​​

global history 67, 8081, 83

    另见 世界历史

    see also world history

戈尔巴乔夫,米哈伊尔36

Gorbachev, Mikhail 36

戈登暴乱(1780)71

Gordon Riots (1780) 71

政府参见 国家

government see State

葛兰西,安东尼奥292

Gramsci, Antonio 292

宏大叙事201、268、296

grand narratives 201, 268, 296

格雷泽尔,苏珊165

Grayzel, Susan 165

格雷文,菲利普260261

Greven, Philip 260261

申诉320

grievance 320

群体意识325

group consciousness 325

分组, 167个模式

grouping, patterns of 167

古哈,拉纳吉特292293

Guha, Ranajit 292293

弗朗切斯科·吉恰尔迪尼38 , 45 , 123

Guicciardini, Francesco 38, 45, 123

海湾战争37

Gulf War 37

Haley,Alex 306307

Haley, Alex 306307

霍尔,凯瑟琳280,294

Hall, Catherine 280, 294

汉萨德托马斯96,128

Hansard, Thomas 96, 128

哈代,托马斯96

Hardy, Thomas 96

哈里斯,何塞161

Harris, Jose 161

哈特利,LP 9

Hartley, L.P. 9

高级庸俗化 162

Haute vulgarisation 162

哈夫洛克,亨利爵士311312

Havelock, Sir Henry 311312

黑格尔,《世界哲学论》第60卷第84页第219页

Hegel, G.W.F. 60, 84, 219

霸权意识形态199

hegemonic ideology 199

遗产1718

heritage 1718

希罗多德314

Herodotus 314

英雄主义45

heroism 45

休伊特,玛格丽特70

Hewitt, Margaret 70

记录135136中的隐藏痕迹

hidden traces in records 135136

高雅文化247、253、254

high culture 247, 253, 254

希尔,克里斯托弗3334 , 54 , 233 , 237 , 240

Hill, Christopher 3334, 54, 233, 237, 240

希尔顿,罗德尼237

Hilton, Rodney 237

事后看来194

hindsight 194

事件史,第156、164

histoire événementielle, l156, 164

历史手稿委员会114

Historical Manuscripts Commission 114

历史主义1、7、21、23、47、179、194、219

historicism 1, 7, 21, 23, 47, 179, 194, 219

    以及学术历史45

    and academic history 45

    以及意识13

    and awareness 13

    文化差异258

    cultural differences 258

    文化转向270

    cultural turn 270

    以及启蒙运动20

    and the Enlightenment 20

    以及法国大革命32 , 48

    and the French Revolution 32, 48

    德国6061

    German 6061

    将过去从现在中解放出来67

    liberating past from present 67

    以及怀旧17

    and nostalgia 17

    以及后现代主义205

    and Postmodernism 205

    并处理40

    and process 40

    以及相对主义193 , 201

    and relativism 193, 201

    以及科学方法195

    and scientific method 195

历史性204

historicity 204

史学65、292、332

historiography 65, 292, 332

    英国157

    British 157

    马克思主义238 , 240

    Marxist 238, 240

    十九世纪227

    nineteenth–century 227

    口述历史305

    oral history 305

    反应性192

    reactive 192

    西部297

    Western 297

    另见 写作与诠释

    see also writing and interpretation

以上历史236

history from above 236

历史从236、292下方开始

history from below 236, 292

历史本身4547 , 194

history for its own sake 4547, 194

历史与政策网站5152

History and Policy website 5152

历史工作坊日志 5

History Workshop Journal 5

历史工作坊运动7172,317

History Workshop movement 7172, 317

希特勒,阿道夫6869

Hitler, Adolph 6869

希特勒日记124125

Hitler diaries 124125

霍布斯托马斯77,132

Hobbes, Thomas 77, 132

霍布斯鲍姆,EJ 37,39

Hobsbawm, E.J. 37, 39

    革命时代 161

    Age of Revolution 161

    高级庸俗化 162

    haute vulgarisation 162

    有趣的时代 236

    Interesting Times 236

马克思主义    视角233、234、237

    Marxist perspective 233, 234, 237

    “短暂的”二十世纪25 , 234

    ‘short’ twentieth century 25, 234

否认大屠杀209

Holocaust denial 209

大屠杀历史性51

Holocaust historicity 51

水平(同步)平面154

horizontal (synchronic) plane 154

Hoskins WG 48、82、83

Hoskins, W.G. 48, 82, 83

霍尔布鲁克,马太福音282

Houlbrook, Matt 282

霍华德,迈克尔190

Howard, Michael 190

赫夫顿,奥尔文277 , 333334

Hufton, Olwen 277, 333334

人类历史30

human history 30

休谟,大卫19

Hume, David 19

Hunt ,Lynn 205206,331

Hunt, Lynn 205206, 331

假设214

hypotheses 214

    历史184-185

    historical 184185

    多重性187188

    multiplicity 187188

图像249、250

iconography 249, 250

编号270

id 270

理想主义178179,186

idealism 178179, 186

思想,77年的历史

ideas, history of 77

身份280

identity 280

    黑色43

    black 43

    种族43

    ethinic 43

    历史71

    historical 71

    种族43

    racial 43

    性282

    sexual 282

    另见 民族认同

    see also national identity

意识形态228

ideology 228

想象力1、35、167-168、185-186

imagination 1, 35, 167168, 185186

远古主义15

immemorialism 15

移民社区,72年的历史

immigrant communities, history of 72

帝国主义254255

imperialism 254255

印象数326

impressions 326

错误134

inaccuracies 134

印度293、297

India 293, 297

个人回忆326

individual recall 326

个体222223

individuals 222223

归纳推理177 , 209

inductive reasoning 177, 209

工业资本主义30

industrial capitalism 30

工业革命12、42、72、73、74、104

Industrial Revolution 12, 42, 72, 73, 74, 104

推论180、182

inference 180, 182

见解168169

insight 168169

本能141143、167、258

instinct 141143, 167, 258

意图69、129、178

intentions 69, 129, 178

相互关联性215

inter–relatedness 215

内部批评参见 解释

internal criticism see interpretation

国际关系史135

international relations history 135

国际主义49

internationalism 49

互联网97、109、110

Internet 97, 109, 110

解释10、90-91、93、126-127、189、192-193

interpretation 10, 9091, 93, 126127, 189, 192193

    以及语言196

    and language 196

    含义258

    of meaning 258

    复数208

    plurality 208

    价值判断190

    value judgements 190

    另见 写作与诠释

    see also writing and interpretation

196197,198

intertextuality 196197, 198

直觉178179、186、258

intuition 178179, 186, 258

欧文,大卫51

Irving, David 51

杰克逊时代的美国261

Jacksonian America 261

Jacob,Margaret 206,331

Jacob, Margaret 206, 331

詹姆斯,哈罗德49

James, Harold 49

杰弗里斯,大法官乔治132

Jeffreys, Lord Chancellor George 132

詹金斯,基思199

Jenkins, Keith 199

詹金斯,罗伊38

Jenkins, Roy 38

沙文主义254

jingoism 254

约翰逊,塞缪尔博士166,167

Johnson, Dr Samuel 166, 167

乔尔,詹姆斯36,152

Joll, James 36, 152

约尔达诺娃,柳德米拉10

Jordanova, Ludmilla 10

记者稿97

journalists’ copy 97

乔伊斯,帕特里克269

Joyce, Patrick 269

司法记录102

judicial records 102

荣格,卡尔·古斯塔夫271

Jung, Carl Gustav 271

治安法官102

Justices of the Peace 102

克肖,伊恩6869

Kershaw, Ian 6869

国王秘书(国务大臣)99100

King’s Secretary (Secretary of State) 99100

知识限度为175210

knowledge, limits of 175210

    历史改编201202

    adaptation of history 201202

共识186-187    不可能

    consensus, impossibility of 186187

    上下文189191

    context 189191

解释, 205-206的    必要性

    explanation, necessity for 205206

    历史事实182184

    facts in history 182184

    事后看来194

    hindsight 194

    否认大屠杀209

    Holocaust denial 209

    假设,历史184185

    hypotheses, historical 184185

    假设,多重性为187188

    hypotheses, multiplicity of 187188

    理想主义:直觉与同理心178179

    idealism: intuition and empathy 178179

想象力, 185-186    重要性

    imagination, importance of 185186

    不完整和有瑕疵的记录180181

    incomplete and tainted records 180181

    归纳推理209

    inductive reasoning 209

    解释192193

    interpretation 192193

    互文性:文本与语境196197

    intertextuality: text and context 196197

    语言195196

    language 195196

    以及文化霸权202203

    and cultural hegemony 202203

    否定历史198199

    negation of history 198199

    起源,搜索191192

    origins, search for 191192

    过去,193 - 194年无法达到

    past, unattainability of 193194

    实证主义:从事实归纳178

    positivism: induction from facts 178

    后现代主义195

    Postmodernism 195

    在上下文200

    in context 200

    限制203205

    limitations 203205

    前体200201

    precursors 200201

    反应式史学192

    reactive historiography 192

记录181-182    过剩

    records, surfeit of 181182

    相对主义197198

    relativism 197198

    科学与历史177

    science and history 177

科学方法,对185    的理解

    scientific method, understanding of 185

    选择188-189

    selection 188189

    自我意识和同伴互评207208

    self–awareness and peer review 207208

    理论上的反对意见和实践中的回应206207

    theoretical objections and practical answers 206207

    辉格党历史210

    Whig history 210

克拉迪托,艾琳218

Kraditor, Aileen 218

昆塔·金特306307

Kunta Kinte 306307

劳动史5 , 2122 , 276

labour history 5, 2122, 276

拉康,雅克282

Lacan, Jacques 282

语言195196、201202、269、282、283、287

language 195196, 201202, 269, 282, 283, 287

    以及文化霸权202203

    and cultural hegemony 202203

    实质性和任意性262

    materiality and arbitrariness 262

    对现实世界的影响性质和程度177

    nature of and extent of bearing on real world 177

    政治与语言话语263264

    of politics and linguistic discourse 263264

    以及后现代主义203

    and Postmodernism 203

    以及相对主义197

    and relativism 197

    理论127

    theories 127

拉斯莱特彼得34,190

Laslett, Peter 34, 190

末日审判30

Last Judgement 30

潜在历史152、157

latent history 152, 157

勒罗伊·拉杜里,伊曼纽尔82 , 121 , 137 , 162

Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel 82, 121, 137, 162

勒费弗尔,乔治237

Lefebvre, Georges 237

法律63 , 136-137

legal history 63, 136137

法律记录103

legal records 103

“莱斯特学派”历史学家82

‘Leicester school’ of historians 82

93、98、99、108封信​

letters 93, 98, 99, 108

    缓解期264

    of remission 264

莱文,大卫82

Levine, David 82

刘易斯,简278

Lewis, Jane 278

自由派历史学家190

liberal historians 190

识字率,大众254

literacy, mass 254

文学技能168169

literary skills 168169

文学理论215 , 262

literary theory 215, 262

文献作为参考资料98

literature as source material 98

劳埃德,豪厄尔193

Lloyd, Howell 193

地方政府记录102104

local government records 102104

地方史48、74、79、81-82、83、317-318

local history 48, 74, 79, 8182, 83, 317318

本地内存307309

local memory 307309

地方公共记录113

local public records 113

伦敦政治经济学院66

London School of Economics 66

长期飞机/注册号164

long term plane/register 164

洛约拉,伊格内修斯77

Loyola, Ignatius 77

路德,《马丁77,253

Luther, Martin 77, 253

马比隆,让122123

Mabillon, Jean 122123

麦考利,托马斯·巴宾45、92、149

Macaulay, Thomas Babington 45, 92, 149

马基雅维利,《尼科洛38、77

Machiavelli, Niccolò 38, 77

麦基宾,罗斯257

McKibbin, Ross 257

麦克米伦,玛格丽特6162

Macmillan, Margaret 6162

宏观经济史333

macro–economic history 333

黑手党24

Mafia 24

马尔科姆·X 5 , 24

Malcolm X 5, 24

曼德拉,纳尔逊54

Mandela, Nelson 54

曼德勒,彼得46

Mandler, Peter 46

曼德鲁,罗伯特259

Mandrou, Robert 259

历史记录152、157

manifest history 152, 157

操纵记忆326

manipulated memory 326

手稿(未发表)来源93

manuscript (unpublished) source 93

三月,伊丽莎白69

March, Elizabeth 69

马维克,亚瑟314

Marwick, Arthur 314

马克思卡尔54、65、84、151、225、230、241-242、333

Marx, Karl 54, 65, 84, 151, 225, 230, 241242, 333

    历史分析229

    analysis of history 229

    社会分析227228

    analysis of society 227228

    对历史学家的批判232

    critique of historians 232

    后殖民主义286

    postcolonialism 286

马克思主义30、31、54、67、215、223、239、331

Marxism 30, 31, 54, 67, 215, 223, 239, 331

文化    证据与文化转向248 , 267-268

    cultural evidence and cultural turn 248, 267268

    文化主义与经济主义235

    culturalism versus economism 235

    以及共产主义的垮台236239

    and fall of Communism 236239

    以及性别史279280

    and gender history 279280

    历史假设184185

    historical hypotheses 184185

    史学240

    historiography 240

    影响233234

    impact 233234

    不完整或有瑕疵的记录180

    incomplete or tainted records 180

社会分析, 234    的实用性

    social analysis, usefulness of 234

    社会结构72

    social structure 72

    和合成163

    and synthesis 163

理论,226-227的    基础

    theory, basis of 226227

    工人阶级235236

    working class 235236

马克思主义史226 , 292

Marxist history 226, 292

男性气质44 , 278

masculinity 44, 278

物质文化251

material culture 251

唯物主义30、78、227、233

materialism 30, 78, 227, 233

马蒂亚斯,彼得217

Mathias, Peter 217

《婚姻诉讼法》(1857年)第41条

Matrimonial Causes Act (1857) 41

梅休,亨利97

Mayhew, Henry 97

马兹利什,布鲁斯260

Mazlish, Bruce 260

含义127、203、215、216-217、268-269、270、282

meanings 127, 203, 215, 216217, 268269, 270, 282

    逆流202

    counter–currents 202

公元280 - 281年    的文化史

    cultural history of 280281

    以及文化247248

    and culture 247248

    经济史74

    economic history 74

    内隐或无意识的202

    implicit or unconscious 202

    不完整且有瑕疵的记录180

    incomplete and tainted record 180

    以及语言196

    and language 196

    以及文学理论264

    and literary theory 264

    以及相对主义197

    and relativism 197

基督的调解136

mediation of Christ 136

中世纪编年史92

medieval chronicles 92

中世纪112、125-126、237​​

Medieval history 112, 125126, 237

中期计划/注册号164

medium term plane/register 164

回忆录第93-96第98页第113页

memoirs 9396, 98, 113

备忘录93、98-99

memorandums 93, 9899

纪念文化325

memorial culture 325

记忆与口述历史303327 , 332

memory and oral history 303327, 332

    收藏集327

    collection 327

    纪念仪式与集体记忆309310

    commemorative ritual and collective memory 309310

    记忆冲突325

    conflict of memories 325

    文化记忆323325

    cultural memory 323325

    民主倾向319、321

    democratic tendency 319, 321

    第一手记忆313314

    first–hand memory 313314

    解释291、307、322-323

    interpretation 291, 307, 322323

    限制321

    limitations 321

    地方史317318

    local history 317318

    本地内存307309

    local memory 307309

操纵记忆326

manipulated memory 326

纪念碑和雕像311313

monuments and statues 311313

    国家记忆307309

    national memory 307309

    口述历史的必要性315

    necessity for oral history 315

    普通民众的叙述315316

    ordinary peoples’ narratives 315316

    口述历史谱系314

    pedigree of oral history 314

    陷阱319321

    pitfalls 319321

    政治324

    politics 324

    民粹主义倾向321

    populist tendency 321

    作为再创造319

    as re–creation 319

    口头传统的作用305307

    role of oral tradition 305307

    以及社会记忆23

    and social memory 23

    社团327

    societies 327

    自发记忆326

    spontaneous memory 326

    另见 :历史意识集体记忆社会记忆

    see also awareness, historical; collective memory; social memory

    心态9、76、78、93、95、167、178

    mentalities 9, 76, 78, 93, 95, 167, 178

265 - 267年    的人类学

    anthropology of 265267

    集体268 , 332

    collective 268, 332

162、259    历史

    history of 162, 259

元叙事206

meta–narrative 206

历史30 , 31-32

metahistory 30, 3132

方法论141143

methodology 141143

米歇莱,朱尔斯314

Michelet, Jules 314

微观史8283

microhistory 8283

微叙事158

micronarratives 158

中世纪1718、20、24、25、67、94、101、124

Middle Ages 1718, 20, 24, 25, 67, 94, 101, 124

中东287288

Middle East 287288

米尔,詹姆斯260

Mill, James 260

约翰·斯图亚特·密尔260

Mill, John Stuart 260

米勒,约瑟夫186

Miller, Joseph 186

98-99分钟​

minutes 9899

现代史10

modern history 10

现代主义3132,200

modernism 3132, 200

莫霍利-纳吉,拉斯洛257

Moholy–Nagy, László 257

“莫莉之家”亚文化3

‘molly house’ sub–culture 3

德国历史纪念碑系列109110

Monumenta Germaniae Historica series 109110

纪念碑311313

monuments 311313

莫里森,赫伯特315

Morrison, Herbert 315

动机69、75、151、167

motive 69, 75, 151, 167

多元文化史203

multicultural history 203

近视18

myopia 18

大众历史的神话2324

myths of popular history 2324

刘易斯爵士纳米尔6364 , 114 , 115116 , 157 , 183 , 184185

Namier, Sir Lewis 6364, 114, 115116, 157, 183, 184185

叙述9396、153、164、205、206、270、332

narrative 9396, 153, 164, 205, 206, 270, 332

以及分析, 170    的组合

    and analysis, combination of 170

    作者影响力129

    author influences 129

    大268,296

    grand 268, 296

    历史可追溯至150 - 151年

    history as 150151

    限制154156

    limitations 154156

    微叙事158

    micronarratives 158

    国家4

    national 4

    平行线165

    parallel 165

    政治179

    political 179

    私人105

    private 105

    以及社会史158159

    and social history 158159

    标准化323324

    standardized 323324

    悬架157

    suspension 157

民族国家79 , 297

nation–state 79, 297

国家档案馆128、131

National Archives 128, 131

国庆日309310

national days 309310

国家历史80

national history 80

民族认同15、16-17、43、263-264​​

national identity 15, 1617, 43, 263264

国家图书馆113114

national libraries 113114

国家记忆307309

national memory 307309

民族主义17、25、46、61、64

nationalism 17, 25, 46, 61, 64

    非洲41

    African 41

    反殖民主义41

    anti–colonial 41

1517世纪    的发明传统

    invented traditions of 1517

“自然”挑战了43-44的概念

‘natural’, challenging notions of 4344

自然科学188

natural sciences 188

纳粹历史学家46 , 191

Nazi historians 46, 191

纳粹主义31

Nazism 31

撰写历史的必要性147149

necessity to write history 147149

否定历史198199

negation of history 198199

新殖民主义287

neo–colonialism 287

新政政府256

New Deal administration 256

新历史49、65-66、67

‘New History’ 49, 6566, 67

报纸93、96-97、98、130

newspapers 93, 9697, 98, 130

新闻短片256

newsreels 256

非宗派方法21

nonsectarian approach 21

诺拉,皮埃尔312

Nora, Pierre 312

怀旧1719、20、48、320

nostalgia 1719, 20, 48, 320

奥克肖特,迈克尔45

Oakeshott, Michael 45

客观历史232

objective history 232

职业分类表140

occupational schedule 140

官方信函9899

official correspondence 9899

官方文件96-97

official papers 9697

官方出版物98

official publications 98

官方公布的记录133

officially published records 133

奥戈尔曼,弗兰克25

O’Gorman, Frank 25

奥尔德诺,塞缪尔104

Oldknow, Samuel 104

奥林匹克运动会的公正性8

Olympian impartiality 8

开放的贵族制73

open aristocracy 73

口述历史参见 记忆和口述历史

oral history see memory and oral history

东方主义288、290、294、296、299

Orientalism 288, 290, 294, 296, 299

起源,搜索191192

origins, search for 191192

“他者化” 281282

‘othering’ 281282

“他者性” 811 , 39 , 288

‘otherness’ 811, 39, 288

概述160

overview 160

欧文主义276

Owenism 276

成对的相反词67 , 332

paired opposites 67, 332

Palack ý , Franti š ek 15

Palacký, František 15

古生物学家125126

palaeographer 125126

巴勒斯坦133、143

Palestine 133, 143

帕诺夫斯基,欧文249

Panofsky, Erwin 249

帕里斯,《马太福音94,129

Paris, Matthew 94, 129

议会14 , 62

Parliament 14, 62

议会程序报告96

parliamentary proceedings reports 96

议会演讲98

parliamentary speeches 98

帕塞里尼,路易莎324

Passerini, Luisa 324

过去,193 - 194年无法达到

past, unattainability of 193194

父权制56 , 275 , 278

patriarchy 56, 275, 278

爱国主义264

patriotism 264

佩德森,苏珊165,284

Pedersen, Susan 165, 284

同行评审207208

peer review 207208

《哈克尼人民自传》319

People’s Autobiography of Hackney 319

塞缪尔·佩皮斯106

Pepys, Samuel 106

周期化训练10、24-25、167、229

periodization 10, 2425, 167, 229

个人发展69

personal development of individuals 69

人格75

personality 75

慈善事业70

philanthropy 70

语言学家125126

philologist 125126

摄影255257

photography 255257

皮姆洛特,本106

Pimlott, Ben 106

平奇贝克,常春藤70

Pinchbeek, Ivy 70

财政部管卷99

Pipe Rolls of the Exchequeur 99

地点和社区, 317的感觉

place and community, sense of 317

柏拉图77

Plato 77

普拉姆,JH 20

Plumb, J.H. 20

多元主义205

pluralism 205

波科克,JGA 132

Pocock, J.G.A. 132

警方记录103

police records 103

政治安排306

political arrangements 306

政治漫画251

political cartoons 251

政治史5960、77、179、193、215、228、270、331 – 332

political history 5960, 77, 179, 193, 215, 228, 270, 331332

    英国68

    British 68

    文化转向267

    cultural turn 267

    日记107

    diaries 107

以及    经济74、75

    and economic history 74, 75

    政府政策135

    government policy 135

    政府记录100

    government records 100

    以及马克思主义社会分析234

    and Marxist social analysis 234

    口述历史315

    and oral history 315

    以及私人文件105106

    and private papers 105106

    以及世俗神职人员94

    and secular clergy 94

    以及社会结构73

    and social structure 73

    主题6163

    subject matter 6163

    在动荡的时代6061

    in turbulent times 6061

    以及女性历史276

    and women’s history 276

政治叙事179

political narrative 179

波普尔,卡尔185

Popper, Karl 185

大众意识23 , 323

popular consciousness 23, 323

流行文化247

popular culture 247

前文字时代和现代253255

pre–literate and modern 253255

Portelli,Alessandro 324

Portelli, Alessandro 324

波特,罗伊258

Porter, Roy 258

实证主义179、181、182、185、188-189、195、206

positivism 179, 181, 182, 185, 188189, 195, 206

    事实归纳法178

    induction from facts 178

事后属性谬误155

post hoc propter hoc fallacy 155

Postan MM 183,221

Postan, M.M. 183, 221

殖民历史203 , 285-299

Postcolonial history 203, 285299

    英国历史,后殖民主义视角下的293 - 296年重新评价

    British history, Postcolonial reappraisal of 293296

    文化转向,对297-298的认可

    cultural turn, acknowledgement of 297298

    新范式285287

    new paradigm 285287

    东方主义299

    Orientalism 299

问题与障碍296297

problems and obstacles 296297

    种族与种族主义289290

    race and racism 289290

    南亚和非洲以及独立299

    South Asia and Africa and independence 299

    底层研究292293

    Subaltern Studies 292293

    理论292

    theory 292

    第三世界和西方理论家287288

    Third World and Western theorists 287288

后现代主义205、206、268、269

Postmodernism 205, 206, 268, 269

195年    的挑战

    challenge of 195

    在上下文200

    in context 200

    文化转向298

    cultural turn 298

    以及解构196

    and deconstruction 196

    认识论331

    epistemology 331

    福柯,米歇尔197

    Foucault, Michel 197

    语言和文化霸权202

    language and cultural hegemony 202

    限制203205

    limitations 203205

    否定历史199

    negation of history 199

    口述历史326

    oral history 326

前体200201

precursors 200201

    以及相对主义198

    and relativism 198

    以及社会记忆22

    and social memory 22

功率197、287、288、298

power 197, 287, 288, 298

    新的极性282285

    new polarities 282285

先例3840

precedent 3840

偏见129、130

prejudices 129, 130

209号楼

premise 209

当下意识/当下主义20、21、191-192、199、208

present–mindedness/presentism 20, 21, 191192, 199, 208

原始资料9193、131、135、147、148、161、167、179

primary sources 9193, 131, 135, 147, 148, 161, 167, 179

    分析122124

    analysis 122124

    贝叶挂毯252

    Bayeux Tapestry 252

    比较史165

    comparative history 165

    关键方法178

    critical method 178

    记录不完整或有瑕疵180181

    incomplete or tainted record 180181

    文学理论262

    literary theory 262

    专著159

    monographs 159

    叙事和回忆录93

    narratives and memoirs 93

    否定历史198

    negation of history 198

    报纸96

    newspapers 96

口述    历史305、313、314

    oral history 305, 313, 314

摄影和电影256

photography and film 256

    相对主义197

    relativism 197

    社会理论239

    social theory 239

印刷90、96、253

printing 90, 96, 253

私营企业记录102104

private firms’ records 102104

私人信件108

private letters 108

私人手稿收藏113114

private manuscript collections 113114

私人文件104106

private papers 104106

问题导向方法120121

problem–oriented approach 120121

进程1112、20、32、4042、162163

process 1112, 20, 32, 4042, 162163

    和合成163

    and synthesis 163

历史学专业化45 , 159

professionalization of history 45, 159

进步,历史19-20世纪

progress, history as 1920

无产阶级231

proletariat 231

宣传46、114、191、251-254、257

propaganda 46, 114, 191, 251254, 257

人物志116

prosopography 116

她面前的前景, 277

Prospect Before Her, The 277

来源,请核实 真伪

provenance see authenticity

精神分析168 , 215 , 270-271 , 282

psychoanalysis 168, 215, 270271, 282

心理史259262

psychohistory 259262

心理上的时代错位259

psychological anachronism 259

集体心理学260261

psychology of the collective 260261

公共历史5052

public history 5052

公共记录办公室(国家档案馆111-112、120、132

Public Record Office (National Archives) 111112, 120, 132

公开记录108、135

public records 108, 135

发表文献93、109-110

published sources 93, 109110

珀基斯,黛安150

Purkiss, Diane 150

历史的目的332333

purposes of history 332333

历史学家的素质166167

qualities of a historian 166167

定量数据138

quantitative data 138

定量历史140

quantitative history 140

种族与种族主义15、43、129、261、289-290、294-295

race and racism 15, 43, 129, 261, 289290, 294295

种族认同43

racial identity 43

种族刻板印象296

racial stereotypes 296

伦敦贫民的种族化295

racialisation of the London poor 295

激进历史190、192

radical history 190, 192

利奥波德·冯·兰克7 , 8 , 20 , 23 , 189 , 219 , 232

Ranke, Leopold von 7, 8, 20, 23, 189, 219, 232

    分析资料123124,157

    analysing sources 123124, 157

    政府记录100101

    government records 100101

    直觉和同理心179

    intuition and empathy 179

    政治史61

    political history 61

    后殖民主义285

    postcolonialism 285

记录来源98

record sources 98

    技巧与直觉258

    technique and intuition 258

    权衡各种信息来源134

    weighing sources against each other 134

再创造模式270

re–creative mode 270

反应式史学192

reactive historiography 192

理由,应用205

reason, application of 205

记录90、108

records 90, 108

    教会入门101-102、103、108

    Church 101102, 103, 108

    县112

    county 112

101-102、103、136-137    法庭​​

    court 101102, 103, 136137

    不完整且有瑕疵180181

    incomplete and tainted 180181

    地方政府102104

    local government 102104

    本地公共113

    local public 113

    正式出版133

    officially published 133

    警察103

    police 103

    私营企业102104

    private firms 102104

    公开108、135

    public 108, 135

皇家法院99

royal courts 99

参考    文献94、98-99

    sources 94, 9899

99-101、103、108    州​​​

    State 99101, 103, 108

    过剩181182

    surfeit 181182

还原论历史240

reductionist history 240

改革法案(1832年)202

Reform Act (1832) 202

宗教改革时期的英国136

Reformation England 136

德国宗教改革时期(253 - 254年)

Reformation Germany 253254

对历史的否定3032

rejection of history 3032

事件关联性167

relatedness of events 167

生产关系(生产关系227、228、230、231、232、234

relations of production (productive relations) 227, 228, 230, 231, 232, 234

相对主义193、197-198、199、201、205

relativism 193, 197198, 199, 201, 205

相关性,拒绝4748

relevance, rejection of 4748

可靠性92、127-128、129、131、139、140

reliability 92, 127128, 129, 131, 139, 140

宗教史7778

religious history 7778

文艺复兴38、54、67、108-109、253

Renaissance 38, 54, 67, 108109, 253

表示215、264、268-269、283

representation 215, 264, 268269, 283

反向话语43 , 289

reverse discourse 43, 289

修辞选择158

rhetorical choices 158

仪式14、15、266、267、309-310

ritual 14, 15, 266, 267, 309310

罗伯茨,伊丽莎白316

Roberts, Elizabeth 316

劳斯莱斯110系列

Rolls Series 110

罗马94,115

Roman history 94, 115

浪漫主义运动7、17、25

Romantic movement 7, 17, 25

根深蒂固的极权主义31

root–and–branch totalitarianism 31

罗森斯通,罗伯特256

Rosenstone, Robert 256

皇家委员会第96号第130号

Royal Commissions 96, 130

皇家法院记录99

royal courts records 99

鲁德,乔治71

Rudé, George 71

罗素,WH 97

Russell, W.H. 97

萨义德爱德华203、287-288、290、294、296、299

Said, Edward 203, 287288, 290, 294, 296, 299

圣保罗大教堂250251

St Paul’s Cathedral 250251

塞缪尔,拉斐尔1819 , 22 , 180 , 197 , 267 , 317 , 326

Samuel, Raphael 1819, 22, 180, 197, 267, 317, 326

萨蒂 297

sati 297

讽刺作为一种来源115

satire as a source 115

斐迪南·索绪尔195196 , 262

Saussure, Ferdinand de 195196, 262

西蒙·沙马150 , 155156 , 333

Schama, Simon 150, 155156, 333

舒尔斯克,卡尔154

Schorsk, Carl 154

科学解释186

scientific explanation 186

科学史177 , 334

scientific history 177, 334

科学方法185 , 195

scientific method 185, 195

Scott , Joan 283 , 297-298

Scott, Joan 283, 297298

斯科特,沃尔特爵士7

Scott, Sir Walter 7

瓜分非洲12

Scramble for Africa 12

Scribner,RW 253254

Scribner, R.W. 253254

抄写室126

scriptoria 126

第二次改革法案(1867年)第131-132

Second Reform Act (1867) 131132

二手资料9193、166、184

secondary sources 9193, 166, 184

选集79,188-189

selection 79, 188189

自我意识45、52、168、207-208

self–awareness 45, 52, 168, 207208

自我欺骗69

self–deception 69

群体的自我认同参见 社会记忆

self–identity of a group see social memory

自我认知207

self–knowledge 207

耸人听闻129

sensationalism 129

情绪323

sentiments 323

序列预测4042

sequential prediction 4042

性别差异277278、279、280、281

sexual difference 277278, 279, 280, 281

性身份282

sexual identity 282

性,282年的历史

sexuality, history of 282

夏普,凯文263

Sharpe, Kevin 263

短期飞机/注册号164

short term plane/register 164

速记128

shorthand 128

《西西里晚祷23-24

‘Sicilian Vespers’ 2324

斯金纳,昆汀132

Skinner, Quentin 132

奴隶制,废除于152 - 153年171年

slavery, abolition of 152153, 171

史密斯亚当19,223

Smith, Adam 19, 223

史密斯-罗森伯格卡罗尔134-135

Smith–Rosenberg, Carroll 134135

雪人,丹尼尔158

Snowman, Daniel 158

社会人类学36

social anthropology 36

社会安排306

social arrangements 306

社会变革73

social change 73

社会史67、70-72、73、179、234、331

social history 67, 7072, 73, 179, 234, 331

    以及分析历史157

    and analytical history 157

    以及Annales学校66

    and Annales school 66

    文化证据与文化转向248 , 267

    cultural evidence and cultural turn 248, 267

    以及家族史11

    and family history 11

    以及法律史136137

    and legal history 136137

    地方政府和私营企业102103

    local government and private firms 102103

    以及地方史82

    and local history 82

    精神障碍258

    mental disorders 258

    以及第158-159页的叙述

    and narratives 158159

    以及口述历史303、317

    and oral history 303, 317

    以及政治史65

    and political history 65

    以及社会记忆23

    and social memory 23

以及    女性史276、277、278、284

    and women’s history 276, 277, 278, 284

社会记忆1 , 20 , 21 , 303-304

social memory 1, 20, 21, 303304

    以及群体自我认同的形成35

    and creation of self–identity of a group 35

    以及反对派的历史意识13

    and historical awareness in opposition 13

    历史,22-23间有重叠

    and history, overlap between 2223

    过去的压迫56

    of past oppression 56

社会流动性72

social mobility 72

社会科学66

social sciences 66

社会结构7273

social structure 7273

社会理论214242,270

social theory 214242, 270

抽象理论, 215-216    必要性

    abstract theory, necessity for 215216

    以及历史上的“重大问题” 239240

    and ‘big questions’ of history 239240

    变化,历史216

    change, historical 216

    阶级冲突230231

    class conflict 230231

    保守主义220221

    conservatism 220221

    决定219220,228229

    determinism 219220, 228229

    生产与社会变迁中的辩证法230

    dialectic in production and social change 230

    恩格斯,弗里德里希241242

    Engels, Friedrich 241242

    英国内战240241

    English Civil War 240241

    概括221222

    generalization 221222

    个体222223

    individuals 222223

    历史的意义216217

    meaning of history 216217

    对理论的否定217218

    rejection of theory 217218

    与历史探究的相关性219

    relevance to historical enquiry 219

防止过度理论化的保障措施218219

safeguards against excessive theorizing 218219

社会科学,第223-225的教训

social science, lessons from 223225

    汤普森,EP:《英国工人阶级的形成》 241

    Thompson, E.P.: The Making of the English Working Class 241

    另见 马克思马克思主义

    see also Marx; Marxism

社交时间, 163164的复数

social time, plurality of 163164

社会主义30

socialism 30

社会主义社会229

Socialist Society 229

社会,分析227228

society, analysis of 227228

社会,73年的历史

society, history of 73

来源评论家(érudit123

source critic (érudit) 123

以来源为导向的方法120121 , 148

source–oriented approach 120121, 148

资料来源:相互权衡134135

sources: weighing of against each other 134135

    另见主要;次要

    see also in particular primary; secondary

南非:

South Africa:

    非洲人国民大会第41届

    African National Congress 41

    种族隔离54 , 238

    apartheid 54, 238

    真相与和解委员会40

    Truth and Reconciliation Commission 40

南亚与独立299

South Asia and independence 299

苏联历史学家46

Soviet historians 46

斯大林统治下的苏联3536

Soviet Union under Stalin 3536

专业资源和技能89

specialist sources and skills 89

地域性专业化59

specialization of locality 59

主题59的专业化

specialization of theme 59

时间专业化5859

specialization of time 5859

斯皮格尔,加布里埃尔204

Spiegel, Gabrielle 204

斯皮瓦克297

Spivak 297

口语词汇参见 口述历史

spoken word see oral history

自发记忆326

spontaneous memory 326

斯普福德,玛格丽特136

Spufford, Margaret 136

斯塔基,大卫333

Starkey, David 333

状态:

State:

    档案99、113

    archives 99, 113

    论文99-100、113、122、132

    Papers 99100, 113, 122, 132

    记录99101、103、108

    records 99101, 103, 108

    试验133

    Trials 133

统计经济模型224

statistical economic models 224

统计证据,对138 项数据的分析

statistical evidence, analysis of 138

统计证据,不可靠性为138140

statistical evidence, unreliability of 138140

统计数据,汇编自140141

statistics, compilation of 140141

雕像311313

statues 311313

斯特德曼·琼斯,加雷斯202

Stedman Jones, Gareth 202

刻板印象129

stereotypes 129

斯通,劳伦斯141、153、158-159

Stone, Lawrence 141, 153, 158159

斯特雷奇,利顿68

Strachey, Lytton 68

斯塔布斯,威廉主教16、63、124、142-143

Stubbs, Bishop William 16, 63, 124, 142143

风格变化199

stylistic permutations 199

《底层研究》292-293页,297

Subaltern Studies 292293, 297

主观性280

subjectivity 280

苏埃托尼乌斯,《盖乌斯传》94 , 115

Suetonius, Gaius 94, 115

苏伊士运河危机133

Suez Crisis 133

妇女参政权运动3,275

suffrage movement 3, 275

超我271

super–ego 271

肤浅191

superficiality 191

上层建筑227、228-229、232、234

superstructure 227, 228229, 232, 234

抑制324

suppression 324

调查160162,163

surveys 160162, 163

资料的存续108109

survival of sources 108109

符号行为266

symbolic behaviour 266

符号过载267

symbolic overloading 267

合成163、165

synthesis 163, 165

塔西佗,《科尔内利乌斯94、115

Tacitus, Cornelius 94, 115

受污染的来源130

tainted sources 130

Tawney RH 66,155

Tawney, R.H. 66, 155

Taylor ,AJP 154156,171,220

Taylor, A.J.P. 154156, 171, 220

技术258

technique 258

电报97

telegraph 97

电视史327

television history 327

文本和上下文196197

text and context 196197

文本含义204

textual meaning 204

文本理论268

textual theory 268

萨恩,帕特35

Thane, Pat 35

撒切尔玛格丽特16,22

Thatcher, Margaret 16, 22

主题比较165

thematic comparison 165

理论导向的历史220

theory–oriented history 220

治疗史35-36

therapy, history as 3536

“深度描述” 266

‘thick description’ 266

第三帝国2 , 35

Third Reich 2, 35

第三世界历史79、238、265、286、297

Third World history 79, 238, 265, 286, 297

    另见 非洲历史

    see also African history

Thomas, Keith 78 , 265

Thomas, Keith 78, 265

Thompson EP 237、240、292、331

Thompson, E.P. 237, 240, 292, 331

    分析史157

    analytical history 157

    地方政府和私营企业103

    local government and private firms 103

    方法论与直觉141

    methodology and instinct 141

    社会关系190

    social relations 190

英国工人阶级的形成73 , 207 , 235-236 , 241

The Making of the English Working Class 73, 207, 235236, 241

汤普森,保罗317,318

Thompson, Paul 317, 318

汤姆森,阿利斯泰尔324

Thomson, Alistair 324

汤姆森,大卫219

Thomson, David 219

修昔底德314

Thucydides 314

亚历克西斯·托克维尔151 , 170

Tocqueville, Alexis de 151, 170

时效性49

topicality 49

历史8283、216、234

total history 8283, 216, 234

极权主义,抵御30-31

totalitarianism, defence against 3031

贸易公司108

trading companies 108

传统17、20

tradition 17, 20

    扭曲效应1314

    distorting effects 1314

    ——共16人

    –making 16

传统主义220221,225

traditionalists 220221, 225

人类历史轨迹30

trajectory of human history 30

转型:通过和平与战争5455

Transformation: by peace and by war 5455

短暂与持久,34-35之间的区别

transience and enduring, distinction between 3435

特拉斯图利,路易吉324

Trastulli, Luigi 324

《凡尔赛条约61-62

Treaty of Versailles 6162

特里维廉,GM 70,169

Trevelyan, G.M. 70, 169

特雷弗-罗珀,休124

Trevor–Roper, Hugh 124

比喻199

tropes 199

都铎王朝通货膨胀84

Tudor inflation 84

隧道视野224

tunnel vision 224

挖掘原始资料114116

unearthing source material 114116

单线性时间163164

unilinear time 163164

苏格兰和英格兰联合42

Union of Scotland and England 42

美国6566

United States 6566

城市7273,333

urban history 7273, 333

资料使用情况119143

use of sources 119143

    分析122124

    analysis 122124

    真实性124126

    authenticity 124126

    偏差130

    bias 130

    英国统治巴勒斯坦143年

    British rule in Palestine 143

131-132    段​

    context 131132

    不同的方法120122

    different approaches 120122

    证据,故意删除132133

    evidence, deliberate removal of 132133

    证据,无意中136138

    evidence, unwitting 136138

    记录135136中的隐藏痕迹

    hidden traces in records 135136

    解释126127

    interpretation 126127

    方法论与直觉141143

    methodology and instinct 141143

    官方公布的记录133

    officially published records 133

    可靠性127128

    reliability 127128

    统计证据,对138 项数据的分析

    statistical evidence, analysis of 138

    统计证据,不可靠性为138140

    statistical evidence, unreliability of 138140

    统计数据,汇编自140141

    statistics, compilation of 140141

    斯塔布斯,威廉主教142143

    Stubbs, Bishop William 142143

    权衡各种资料来源134135

    weighing sources against each other 134135

    作者的意图和偏见129130

    writer intentions and prejudices 129130

历史的用途2955

uses of history 2955

    类比3840

    analogies 3840

    假设,对4243的质疑

    assumptions, questioning of 4243

当代史, 52    的必要性

    contemporary history, necessity for 52

36-38    段​

    context 3638

    文化学科/社会科学5253

    cultural subject/social science 5253

    熟悉的,第3435课

    familiar, lessons from 3435

    研究领域,相关4850

    fields of study, relevant 4850

    历史本身4547

    history for its own sake 4547

    备选方案清单3334

    inventory of alternatives 3334

    马克思主义与英国革命54

    Marxism and the English Revolution 54

    元历史——将历史视为长期发展30

    metahistory – history as long–term development 30

“自然”挑战了43-44的    概念

    ‘natural’, challenging notions of 4344

    公共历史5052

    public history 5052

    对历史的否定3032

    rejection of history 3032

    相关性,拒绝4748

    relevance, rejection of 4748

    文艺复兴54

    Renaissance 54

    序列预测4042

    sequential prediction 4042

    治疗史35-36

    therapy, history as 3536

转型:通过和平与战争5455

Transformation: by peace and by war 5455

95、190、193-194、306、323

values 95, 190, 193194, 306, 323

    以及文化247248

    and culture 247248

Vansina,1月307

Vansina, Jan 307

语言能力168169

verbal skills 168169

韦尔尼家族104105

Verney family 104105

垂直(历时)平面154

vertical (diachronic) plane 154

维克里,阿曼达298299

Vickery, Amanda 298299

维多利亚时代6768

Victorian times 6768

文森特,大卫95

Vincent, David 95

文兰地图伪造者125

Vinland Map forger 125

弗朗索瓦·玛丽·阿鲁埃·伏尔泰19​​ , 20 , 60

Voltaire, François Marie Arouet de 19, 20, 60

沃克,帕梅拉78

Walker, Pamela 78

沃科维茨,朱迪思283284

Walkowitz, Judith 283284

沃尔特,休伯特99

Walter, Hubert 99

韦伯、西德尼和比阿特丽斯66

Webb, Sidney and Beatrice 66

韦伯,Max 151,225,333

Weber, Max 151, 225, 333

韦奇伍德,CV 156,169

Wedgwood, C.V. 156, 169

西方史学297

Western historiography 297

西方历史79、90、121、296​​

Western history 79, 90, 121, 296

西方帝国主义37

Western imperialism 37

辉格历史191192,210

Whig history 191192, 210

怀特海登158,198-199,202

White, Hayden 158, 198199, 202

怀特,杰瑞317318,322

White, Jerry 317318, 322

怀曼,苏珊104105

Whyman, Susan 104105

威克姆,克里斯237238,305

Wickham, Chris 237238, 305

威尔伯福斯,威廉152,171

Wilberforce, William 152, 171

威廉姆斯,雷蒙德246

Williams, Raymond 246

遗嘱102、136

wills 102, 136

伍尔斯通克拉夫特,玛丽294

Wollstonecraft, Mary 294

女性史49、72、134、192、275-276

women’s history 49, 72, 134, 192, 275276

妇女解放275 , 283

Women’s Liberation 275, 283

妇女运动5

women’s movement 5

工人阶级与马克思主义理论235236

working class and Marxist theory 235236

世界历史79、80、92、286

world history 79, 80, 92, 286

英国的世界大战308

World Wars in Britain 308

沃波尔,肯319

Worpole, Ken 319

赖特,唐纳德8384

Wright, Donald 8384

赖特森,基思72,82

Wrightson, Keith 72, 82

作者的意图和偏见129130

writer intentions and prejudices 129130

写作与诠释147171

writing and interpretation 147171

    学术专著159160

    academic monograph 159160

    多层分析153154

    analysis, multi–layered 153154

156-158    分析历史、优势和劣势

    analytical history, strengths and weaknesses of 156158

    原因和后果,历史151152

    causes and consequences, historical 151152

    合作史160162

    collaborative history 160162

    比较史164166

    comparative history 164166

    描述,历史可追溯至149 - 150年

    description, history as 149150

    经验范围:168171

    experience, breadth of 168171

    延长期163

    extended periods 163

    第一次世界大战,170 - 171年的起源

    First World War, origins of 170171

    历史写作形式149

    forms of historical writing 149

    想象力167168

    imagination 167168

    潜在原因和长期后果152153

    latent causes and long–term consequences 152153

    叙事,历史,如150151

    narrative, history as 150151

叙述, 154-156    局限性

    narrative, limitations of 154156

    叙事与社会史158159

    narratives and social history 158159

    撰写历史的必要性147149

    necessity to write history 147149

    概述160

    overview 160

    过程,历史162163

    process, historical 162163

    历史学家的素质166167

    qualities of a historian 166167

    奴隶制,废除171年

    slavery, abolition of 171

社交时间, 163164    的复数

    social time, plurality of 163164

    合成163

    synthesis 163

    托克维尔,亚历克西·德· 170

    Tocqueville, Alexis de 170

书面文字9091

written word 9091

杨,亚瑟60

Young, Arthur 60

杨,GM 142

Young, G.M. 142

泽尔丁,西奥多33、176、179、207

Zeldin, Theodore 33, 176, 179, 207

泽蒙·戴维斯,娜塔莉33

Zemon Davis, Natalie 33